Someday: Our Loves of Summer
by COLA CAO
Summary: "Our love stayed alive only in summer, and summer love is seasonal." They were two kids on the golden coast of California, unlikely friends turned "Best Bruhs" when they were unfairly separated. Yet with a ring given, a promise made with it and they'd find each other again. Even if it took them years. Even if it took them halfway across the globe, Summer Love never felt so good.
1. Kurt

**SOMEDAY: OUR LOVES OF SUMMER**

_**THE CHILD  
**__2001__**  
**_**  
I**

**~ Kurt ~**

Mid July and a dazzling sunset accompanying the wind off the Pacific Ocean. Fresh and cool and astringent, smelling only faintly of the allegedly briny rot and beach debris, though the latter non-existent in sight, but a flawless stretch ranked by many tourists as the best beach in the United States, that of Coronado Beach. Coronado, the 'crowned one', an affluent resort city nestled across San Deigo Bay from downtown San Diego, and its beach beating out those of Malibu, Santa Monica and even Venice Beach. It was one befitting a golden Californian coast, befitting a beachfront luxury hotel, with its crown jewel, the Hotel Del Coronado, long considered one of the world's top resorts, laying atop its shores like a sprawling beauty.

The signature red terra cotta tiled roof, classical columns and painted wood, paint so fumy fresh and white it lightened the head to a weight of the sea air itself, possessed utmost grandeur of Queen Anne Style architecture, carved into every room, carved into its body and kept unharmed from renovations throughout its one hundred and twenty year existence. Even the chandelier lit lobby, where an onset of new arrivals had booked in late afternoon, their names listed with an "enjoy your stay" parting them from the desk to their rooms, there to catch the remaining remnants of the dying sun the shade of vermillion, bittersweet orange and Barbie pink, all hot and sizzling as the water took on its reflection on the lapping waves, blood waves.

The rich color was spread upon thick puckered lips, those of Elizabeth Hummel's, yet only on the outer rim so as to finalize her work, a fully dimensioned mouth, having used two other similarly shaded lipsticks to create the perfect pout, now coming together down upon a tissue to rid her of the excess. Yet it did not flutter upon the vanity, but in little hands that brought it up to a little nose, smelling the scent of his mother's lipstick, Chanel, the femininity, the sophistication it brought to those now smiling lips as Elizabeth looked to her side and gazed upon her little son, his dreamy liquidy blue eyes lightening as if high off baby powder. And there she laughed as she wrapped her hand around his waist to bring him into her close and giggling.

The woman was a beauty, shape of an hourglass at the waist, the face sculpted in that of a heart with fair skin that gave off waves of heat like a pavement in summer sun and her eyes! Teenage flirty and happy-go-lucky, now dilated full on blue in excitement as her son sank his fingers into her waves of strawberry blonde hair let down from their silk ribbon pigtails and free to fall across her shoulders, strands even reaching down into her cleavage, an ample bosom that smoldered almost cheeky sexuality with breasts so creamy and soft, oh her son could remember how soft they were to the sensitive nerves at his fingertips, to his very lips now smiling as his mother's soft hands glided over the vanity like a pianist over a keyboard.

The perfume bottle was popped open, Elizabeth's perfume, Teint de Neige by Lorenzo Villoresi, the rosy hue of a powdered face, the fragrance of face powder. It was an aroma delicately permeated by the richness of the natural extracts of flowers, allegedly recalling the light, images and atmosphere of the belle-époque where now before a vanity mirror both mother and son could celebrate their fair complexions amongst these bronzed Californians at dinner that evening, a final touch that left the boy giggling as a lone droplet of perfume unleashed from his mother's fingertip wove a ticklish trail from behind his ear and down his neck, the scent of clean diapers Elizabeth used to spritz rose oil onto when he was a full faced baby. _Mommy._

Kurt himself was at a tender age, with his birthday memories of balloons and shimmering hand-lettered banners – HAPPY 8th BIRTHDAY KURT! – Still remembered back in May, two months ago. The way his eyes had blinked bright blue when snuffing out the eight wax candles atop his angel-food birthday cake that moistened his tongue even now. Whipped vanilla icing, the syrupy frosting, the way the cake had been damp and sticky in the center with such big pieces cut they had spilled over the plates, but such a good tasting cake. Never had he tasted such a cake, and the wish he'd made from right at the start. He could remember it and how he'd hoped it would come true as he'd nursed his sickish stomach after such piggy-piggy eating.

Angel in the face Kurt was. Rub a sugar scrub into the skin and it wouldn't sweeten, for it was as sweet as was possible with dimpled cheeks and eyes some believed disproportionate to his facial frame, they appeared too big and bluish. A walking talking Kewpie doll with hair the shade of chestnut brown and lips so tasty looking red it was as if a screaming strawberry had been brutally cut open and made to bleed all over them at birth, a blessing Elizabeth told him, inheriting the feature from her, but made fun of back in his Kindergarten, the rumored belief that he was behind the red Crayola shortage, how he either smeared them all over his 'big fat red tomato juice lips' or in fact ate them for pudding at lunch, along with the red Silly Putty.

Such immature accusations disheartened his mother but erupted laughter from his father, Burt Hummel, a burly man firmly built like a wood cutting lumberjack with a backward baseball cap and flannel wearing fashion sense that would often stain heavily from oil changes if overalls were forgotten. For Burt was a mechanic, Hummel Tires and Lube, his own business headquartered back in their home town of Lima, Ohio. He had been in the profession for some time now with his strong hands well known as the healer of many a dying an engine, though heavily noted by some for striking no single resemblance to his son both physically and emotionally, his small little son pressed to his mother's side, her own little clone doll of a son.

However, as if the now evening sea air had entered their family suite, in it was borne, it seemed, the wind of Burt Hummel, holding open the door with a "Kurt, come! Let's eat!" And a hand offered out to him to run over and take all the way down to dinner, enjoying the feeling of that little hand caught in his big calloused palm, one near to losing that hand it was so small, but never did either one let go, even as father and son hurried down flights of grand staircases as down a mountainside, breathless and gripping hands, past perplexed concierges and Elizabeth's amused cries to "Burt! Slow down!" Oh to Kurt, the safety of his laughing father, fine smelling of wood, tobacco and leather, that new car smell that was always on him. _Daddy._

The Sheerwater was an expansive outdoor terrace, the Hotel Del Coronado's refined, yet casual oceanfront restaurant with a "Fish by the Sea" menu that took advantage of the restaurant's beachfront location and featured classic bistro-style cuisine with a focus on fresh and sustainable seafood, ladled on everyone's plates as Kurt and his parents were seated at their table, their faces flushed with cheeks rosy as ever as menus were distributed, orders made and dishes of Filet Mignon, Chicken and Crab Parperdelle and Pizza were laid before them all, conversation thick amongst tinkling glasses, laughter all around muffled by sheer white napkins with the air warm from the outdoor fireplaces and yet salty too, the salt from the sea, enough to taste.

Kurt would listen on to his parents as he ate, hearing them talk of the six hour flight and the amusing announcements the airline stewardesses had given them over the intercom. Hearing his parents speak of rapid journey to the hotel from the airport and of their next day's planned activities to visit the local town. And in his speech, Burt would pause so as to watch as Elizabeth leaned over, her napkin in hand to remove sauce, since dried, from the corner of Kurt's lips, his wincing features of disgruntlement as if he'd much rather have licked it off instead for that was the extent of young child's understanding of wastefulness, stretching a smile across her glowing face. Yet Kurt had been so hungry. They all had. It had been a long day.

"So what do you think, son? Looking forward to tomorrow?" Asked Burt smiling as with the bill paid and thanks made to the waiter, the Hummel's returned along paved white paths to the now lit hotel, their skin no longer kissed by the soft breeze but warmer as Kurt once again found his hand encased in that of his father's, a man of adventure, of wanderlust, no doubt a warrior if he'd been born in another era and looking down at him as he nodded, smiling an assured "mmhmm" in response.

"It'll be good to know if they run anything for children here in the hotel," voiced Elizabeth to Burt as her hand came to land comfortingly on Kurt's back, swiveling that chestnut head, raising those eyes so blue met blue, a cheeky smile in place. "Don't worry Kurt, it's not as if I'm planning on dumping you in a ball playpen whilst your father and I pull a Bonnie and Clyde to go hijack a couple of Segways through town, because we are upstanding citizens and we would _so _never do that… right, daddy?"

"Right, because Bonnie and Clyde really would have chosen Segways to run from the law on," scoffed Burt. "Seriously, have you seen those things, they only go twelve miles an hour. Our little guy will have hoisted our sorry asses behind bars before you'd figure out how to ride one in heels," Burt's laugh, a chortling rumble as he squeezed Kurt's hand. "Honestly Lizzie, what kind of example are you setting our son. I'm going to have to audition for another Bonnie, you're just not making the cut."

"Oh but Clyde I thought you loved me, I thought we'd be in this thing together forever and ever!" Cried out Elizabeth as Burt shook his head in amused mockery. "Fine, Kurt and I will create our own criminal duo and we'll pull bigger heists than you ever could with those butterfingers of yours and he'll pay me to! The 401 (k) plan you promised me but never did because you were too busy investing in the idea of copyrighting your own species of chicken with genetically engineered mustaches."

"First of all, they were robot chickens and second of all, maybe I would have realized what totally stupid idea that was before they all went Frankenstein on me if I hadn't found out about your affair!" Accused Burt with a finger brandished. "That's right, Liz! I know about you and the er… the erm… the cook!" Elizabeth gasped, a dramatic gasp. "That's right! The cook! I know what you've been doing and soon your craving for chequered trousers and toque's will be all over town in a matter of hours!"

"Oh God, oh Clyde I didn't want it to end like this," sighed Elizabeth dramatically, a hand shooting straight to her forehead. "And in the sense that I totally didn't take your body's measurements in the middle of the night for a custom made oven to bake you into a giant pie for us to eat, because you now, I'm Mrs. Lovett like that, making pies out of men is kind of my life now," joked Elizabeth, flicking her long wavy hair behind her with wistful hands, the sheer pride of a dramatic actor in her air.

It was not adult humor the way Kurt understood it, it was so much more playful, of possibly his caliber of playful so light and fluffy it hovered over him, Burt now asking, "How would I taste?"

Elizabeth pondered the question with a finger to her chin. "Bald," she laughed, petting her husband's shaved head, and there again that pulsing laughter that had both of them hugging him as they walked, "Oh Kurt," on their grinning lips, "Our little baby, we love you so much," their 'baby' smiling back.

"I actually think they have a camp here for kids where they do all sorts of stuff. We could check that out sometime tomorrow before we go," as with a release from his chuckles, his voice breathy but clear, Burt gazed upon his son, yet his son wished for his parents to keep playing, to kid around as they were with him caught in-between as their 'baby' and to not worry about him, for watching them was all he wanted, but with Burt's words, he looked up. "What do you think Kurt, you up for that?"

"I want to stay with you and mommy. You're so much more fun."

"Well of course we're fun Kurt, but there's no harm in checking it out, right?"

"There's loads of harm, that's why they try out mommy's lipstick on bunny rabbits."

"Yes, and if I see them trying to test out anything on you, you're outta there, okay son."

"S-sure, daddy," replied Kurt in the midst of nerves, the thought of other children, his heart beating fast like the overworking wings of a Hummingbird, wearing them out as Elizabeth suggested in an excited voice it was almost sung, "Oh, but let's just go see where it is now. It'll save us from searching tomorrow." And like that their route was changed, paused at the lobby desk for directions and off on their new course again, the small buckles in Kurt's sandals tinkling with each little frightened step.

Kidtopia Camp and Crafts were the hotel's facility for children aged four to twelve, featuring amongst the underwater murals and separate beach-themed rooms, a funhouse mirror and high-tech entertainment stations, all brightly colored with music painting the airwaves just as gaily, and all for play time, to play, though to Kurt, all excitement at the sight of those his age inside 'playing' served only to squeeze it all out, as if the last drop of moisture had been wrung with force from a washcloth. His toes were curling, feet turned inward and he could sense his palms sweat in that of his father's as he was turned to see Elizabeth crouching down to him, reassurance in her eyes, reassurance in her words as she took on her truest self, his mother.

Both father and mother were well aware of their child's status on the playground. Though Kurt could be sweetly charming when he wished to be, and not so timid and shy as to immediately duck for cover as if like a frightened animal, he was an enigma of a boy, with many of his peers failing to place him. A boy like no other with coordinated clothes never grass stained from the football fields, that rubber smooth skin never dirtied with mud but now sallow looking as he peered in through the glass in the door, into this play pen. That sickish-scared sensation in his curdling belly he felt at the top of a flight of stairs or looking out a high window or the idea of running too close to the edge of the surf of this very beach when a tall wave broke…

_It would be said of me that I was unhappy. That my face, my very being encased in costume clothes and Ken doll hair, that my childhood was a lonely one and odd to see parents as best friends as mommy didn't have me when she was in her teens. I wasn't an 'accident', but strange all the same and I knew the concern when I saw it, mommy now saying before this kid's kingdom or whatever this child pen that had kids bouncing off the walls was called, _"If you don't like it, you don't have to stay, but I swear Kurt that you can light up any room you walk in as brightly as **you **sometimes. You just don't know it."_ Oh, but I did know it, I just didn't like it, but mommy did, and daddy did too, my best friends who loved me. No, I was not unhappy. _

Fifteen minutes remained before Kidtopia facilities closed, or so the supervisor let Kurt's parents know, slightly comforting, but nevertheless he entered as if entering a gladiatorial pit, there to be slain with whatever these children wished to slay him with. Or of course dismiss him as a mere ornamental feature in human form. For he was "bonnie" enough to be ornamental. Cute, and not at all bad-looking thought the supervisor. As smooth featured as a wealthy lady's silk purse. He wouldn't last a second. Kurt was made of porcelain when plastic toys all around were ripped apart in the nibbling jaws of these children, put through hell and only to be disposed days later, but of course these exaggerated images were laughable and silly. Silly him.

The population in the room was unimpressive for a hotel the size of the Del, but there was still a little over a quaint amount with a crowd of kids younger than he sitting around a table finishing up their crafts, golden paper crowns atop their heads and tongues poking out of their mouths as small beads amidst mountains of glitter were set upon paper ladled with too much glue. Whilst over in the corner, a small crowd had gathered around the Dance Dance Revolution arcade, most of them girls dressed in tee shirts so long they were near to masking their cropped denim pants, the fashion of Californian youth, yet atop the dance platform were the flickering sights of a head, a male head, a boy's, bobbing up and down in time with the music.

Kurt's glassy blue eyes were the ideal jewels of observation as he came to sit atop a nearby stool, shifting awkwardly. He'd been invited by the supervisor to join in the activities with that plastered cheesy smile on her cheeks that must have ached her facial muscles after a full day of pulling it across her skin, but no, he said he was "fine" sat atop his little perch at the side, and sensing not to persist, she'd left him be. She'd already guessed that if you were to say hello to him or make a friendly remark in his direction like she'd done, breezing him in, eager to talk and laugh and exchange pleasantries as they'd entered, he'd lift his eyes quick and startled-blue and shrink back in the same reflex, for she'd seen it before in many other children.

Yet she couldn't get over it, as if she'd been kicked in the groin upon sight of those _eyes_, that this boy was _so_ sweet looking, and of course too young to realize it. Probably didn't even care. He lowered those gems and turned away, mumble something polite and that was that, as if to say "don't look at me, please!" Well, if you insist. There were other children in the room, and boys, and they weren't shy, especially that one on the dance arcade, hitting all the right arrows with enough force in his legs to crack the glass from beneath him Such _power_, but grooving himself to the beat with such rhythm in his aura it won him the game as with the arcade's thunderous voice over, the dance had been killed with cheers of "_whoop!_" all around. Applause!

Childish chaos was near to breaking out around the arcade. A pair of girls were fighting in shoves for the next turn, yet as if everything was cool amidst it all, the boy, the dancing king atop his platform appeared unfazed, pleased even, as if the girls were fighting over him. Girls all around him enough to smother, following him as with a head nod to the music that had once again started up, the boy was moving once again with lips slightly pouted, almost boogieing out into the center of the room with masculine swagger and so much swagger it was almost ridiculous looking, yet it drew the girls in droves, had them all following suit and circling the boy in a dancing ring of feminine laughter, shimmering long hair and open baby toothed smiles.

To Kurt, boys were to be made aware of, to approach with caution, or to not approach at all for with boys you never knew how they would react. You never knew what cruel, coarse words might spring to their lips, and how their hands, quick as a boxer's, might leap out as much to call attention as to hurt, like an exclamation point at the end of a sentence, at the end of laughter directed at the face, accompanying a pinch so hard the red mark would show for hours like a pernicious little kiss on Kurt's waxy-pale skin. A boy's kiss. All boys he angrily liked to think. Even this show monkey with happy feet, thrusting hips and arrogant sexuality inappropriate for a boy his age, maybe eight, nine, perhaps even ten judging by the looks of him.

"This is for you!" Into Kurt's hand was suddenly thrust a paper crown by the shiny face of a little girl peering up at him with fingers soiled with crayon stains, the makers of a crown messily colored gold alongside blue circles all filled in, imitating sapphires, he assumed, "to go with your eyes, because you have blue eyes, see?" And Kurt did see and he thanked her for it, watching her scamper back to re-join the others at the table. Yet there she looked at him from a distance thinking her gaze discreet, but it wasn't. A gaze heavy on his hands as they fiddled with the crown, white crayon cleverly used in touches upon each sapphire to imitate caught light, or the life in Kurt's eyes, such sparkle like glass she'd noticed, continued to even now.

This little girl of four with near albino white hair and glitter lodged underneath her finger nails observed Kurt like someone befitting every single paper crown made on their table. He was fascinating to behold, how he was, his very being, and all these kids with melanin heated to the top of their skin as if the sun had caramelized them like crème brulees, he was as fair as her own hair, and those _eyes_, how they now widened as with a voice amongst the dancing crowd came the order, "Come on baby, shake that cute li'l butt!" That dancing boy with all the older girls smelling of cheap pop stars and magazine nail polish. The type of boy that was common in the youth of California, silly looking to the girl as she now turned back to see… to see…

_I don't think he'd meant to stay long. We were finishing up anyway by the time he'd entered, but such a shy entrance. Similar to my own shyness, but cute in a way, a sense of terrified coquetry, but he was gone now. He'd taken the crown I made him with no goodbye. Blue eyes was gone and the strange part of it was, I wasn't the only one to notice, but of course not. For the other boy, that dancing one had paused staring an approving smirk at the door and like that, I knew whose 'cute li'l butt' he'd been talking about. Oh, how his fair skin must have blushed indignant in his white top, shorts indeed tight about the buttocks in his cute Lottie sandals. Poor blue eyes, scared from that jocular affection he'd never in this life encountered, until now. _

**.**

**Glee**

**.**

Coronado, lying on its peninsula and only connected to the mainland by the ten mile isthmus, named by the locals as the Silver Strand was host to many parks, theatres, restaurants and beaches, all tourist friendly and entertaining to new eyes, even to eyes of the young as with one look at the sea and the sense of enthrallment would overwhelm you, it's ceaseless rippling fluid movement. Oh how it would lap over you, and the wind in your hair as you'd ride the Segways, the raucous laughter one could hear from the playhouse, musical concerts of band quartets set in the park gazebo enough to ring the ears, the picnics of ice cream sandwiches, roasting bikini sunbathers, palm trees, candy parasols and always so hot, hot, hot!

Kurt's own skin was the scent of sunblock that only had it appearing all the fairer, leaving behind a whitish shiny sheen like residue of a cream too thick to be absorbed. His mother had lathered it all over him this morning, right after his shower, down the arms, across the nape of his neck, ears, face, legs, any stretch of flesh exposed to an unforgiving sun had been covered, to feel "blonde all over" as Elizabeth had put it had appeared, at first glance in the bathroom mirror, accurate. For pale was beautiful, pale was classic, as classic to his mother as her lipstick, and for Kurt she wanted this look, was pleased to see it on him throughout such a heated day with the sun kissing him without leaving so much as a mark, those red marks that _burned_.

Again, Burt was to laugh, the worrisome nature of his wife fretting over their son as he'd stood in the middle of the bathroom fully naked, the expression on his face, one of frustration proving such a comical act, such comedy overpowering those performed in the playhouses. Elizabeth in her stylish straw hat almost haloing her face, white maxi dress, white ensemble throughout, and keeping to the shade as much as possible only allowing a little sun to grace her fair skin, her face with wavy strawberry blonde all around, she was adamant on keeping herself and the Californian sun as mere acquaintances, but to Kurt, the heat was welcomed, and to Kurt, the heat made him dizzy and the pleasurable kind, dizziness that made him laugh!

As it was, late afternoon and the sun's intensity had softened with father, mother and son returning to the hotel on lazy legs, a stroll so slow there was no swing of energy from Burt's camera as it dangled riskily from his wrist, a camera picture full of photos of his wife posed with her dress at the stroking hand of the breeze, and of course of his son, his little boy of adorable disposition in his clothes of pastel pales and teddy bear backpack, both of them often embraced before Burt, "Keep it there guys. Pose for the camera." _Click!_ "Perfect." Elizabeth's arms wrapped around their boy, cheeks pressed together with blue eyed smiles wide in front of many a sunlit background, the beauty that was Coronado and showcasing a good day well spent.

And Kurt would sing to himself as along the paths to the hotel they journeyed, lagging a short way behind on floating feet with an ice cream in hand, wondering, just wondering why each little bird had a someone to sing to, sweet things to, "a gay little love melody." Humming the tune, he had a joyous energy that seemed to suffuse him. He loved music. It's effect on people. The way it was able to lift their hearts. To make them happy about life. About love. Romance, oh, it was a mystery to him. Like beauty, it had no obvious use, or any real clear necessity, yet he could not do without the idea of it. Yes, he wondered, he so wondered if his heart kept singing would his song go winging to someone who'd find him, "and bring back a love song to me."

To the sounds of a spray, he would now stop abruptly, though the music would go on, accompanying this spraying of water that grew the instinct to enter immediately, to cool off, for this ice cream could only do so much, the way it itself was giving up as it melted with droplets trickling down the cone before they were lapped up by that warm tongue, this tongue that licked and lapped and licked, pink remnants on his lips licked away before his mother could come hurtling his way with a napkin to rub at his face. No. This ice cream was all his to consume but by God was the sound of that water spraying itching his clammy hot skin to make contact now, to throw himself under its mercy and to drench himself, just the word 'drench' so irresistible.

It was the Orange Avenue fountain. Of course! Circular in shape with baby bushes going right round and in its center, the spray, reaching high into the air with the slight breeze wafting a mist onto Kurt's skin as he neared, coming to a stop and for several minutes he stood eying it, the water he felt like dunking his naked feet into, slipping himself into it like a seal pup and playing with the water all but splashing about amidst his churning body, but he knew he'd get told off if he tried. It would be so cold, would recall images of the ice baths his father would immerse himself in when he'd been a college athlete and now occasionally his mother, her baths always perfumed with drops of her Italian fragrance as ice cubes would float all around.

Suddenly, with the sight of the fountain's tiled floor, an almost azure shade of blue, the most brilliant, an idea had Kurt rummaging his hands through the pockets of his shorts, feeling around for a coin, any coin that with his back to the fountain, he'd throw with his right hand over his left shoulder, or so his mother had taught him, and though this rather understated little fountain was no Fountain Trevi or Baroque boasting masterpiece from Rome, it was still a fountain capable of granting wishes, a new romance if two coins were thrown in and marriage if into the water three coins entered, again a little fact his mother had let him in on with her lips next to his ear as he'd giggled away into making his wish for a pair of heels at the time.

Disappointment was met upon no discovery, no coin, and with a cry of his name upon his mother's lips, he turned his head to see his parents further down the pathway waving him over, yet with rushed hands signaling to the fountain, he propped his backpack onto the its edge and rummaged. A map of Coronado with a note of his parent's cell as well as the number of the hotel in case he got lost, a keychain, a melted chocolate bar, certainly soft and sticky, but no- "yes!" Upon his smiling lips as down in the crevice of the backpack, stuck in the corner and out was retrieved a coin rolling into his palm, a fifty cent piece, 'LIBERTY' embossed on the outer rim, a profile of John F. Kennedy in the center with 'In God We Trust' worded at the bottom.

How shiny it was, how silver it looked, as if it weren't made of alloy metal, but actual silver and how pretty it would look on the floor of the fountain, not that it was a wishing fountain. It was fairly ordinary. No coins littered its tiled floor, and like signs at zoos to 'not feed the animals' or visiting historical estates to 'not walk on the grass', Kurt suspected coin tossing wasn't allowed here either, but it was in his hand and it was a hand suspended over the water willing to drop and let gravity do its work. Yet on the verge of commencing the ritual, to ensure his wish would come true only through the steps, a voice sounded and like that, the coin was lost, falling through the air into the water too fast to retrieve, his wish wasted, his wish gone.

The lips pouted on his little pained face, Kurt quickly leaned over the fountain, clumsily, with almost depressed eagerness and peered inside, careful not to push in his teddy bear backpack as he did. The water was only shallow with his coin right there, blurred and distorted amidst the ripples and for a second he considered retrieving it, so close it was, but bad luck befell those who took coins out, or so it was believed. He wasn't going to do it, and he had no more coins on him. All but a pathetic sigh, the slumping of the shoulders weighed him down until with the sound of that voice in the air behind him and Kurt was quick to whip around, eyes alert, his body stiffening just perceptibly upon the sight, but stiffened all the same, still, and motionless.

_There he stood, nearer to me than he had last night but not too close as he knew very well how I looked, how my body had poised itself ready to pelt, and there he was, hands in his cargo short pockets, his feat softly rocking on their soles with that arrogant smirk feigning innocence I couldn't stand, for he had made the sound I was sure of it, had distracted me into losing my coin, losing my wish. And standing there with the nerve to appear so confident! It couldn't be real. Had me thankful my buttocks were no longer facing him, but my legs were, my sandled little toes turning inward, my hand, oh how I wish he would stop looking upon my skin, my near white skin so fair and unprotected and **burning** under those magnetic hazel eyes of his. _

Kurt had not spoken of what had occurred in Kidtopia to his parents, sparsely decorating what he thought of the place with many words and only highlighting the experience with the makeshift paper crown the young girl had given him. His parents had not pursued the subject either, for they knew Kurt had been afraid of those inside. Those strong-willed easily definable in the large room, the ones you had to win over fast in school. You didn't get a second chance if you didn't. Without brothers or sisters you were alone. All you had was yourself and as Kurt had tried on his brand new crown in the bathroom mirror, his mother behind him adjusting it on his head, he'd not let her know of the boy with such confidence it had scared him inside.

Now and here, his parents had not wandered far, with his father admiring a gleaming 1950s red Cadillac Elderado, its high tail fins and matching deck lid beauty panels the perfect vehicle for Elizabeth to pose herself next to in perfect pinup posture, seating herself on its hood in her blowing maxi dress and hat, snapped by Burt's camera as a few meters away their son stood trapped in similar fashion with the refreshing mist of the fountain's spray at the nape of his neck and a strange boy in front eying him, Kurt eying him right back, for it was the only thing he could think of to keep those hazel eyes from descending, to discover any weaknesses in his structure, anything to tease with words or anything to pinch hard, the burning kiss of a boy.

True to form, almost a cliché, this boy was good looking. Good looking enough to attract girls and good looking enough to know it himself with eyes hazel rich on a face handsomely boyish, his skin a very fetching tan shade and his body bigger than Kurt's in a way he couldn't quite describe, similar he supposed to how the athletic boys at school were built with their already broadening shoulders and thickening hands. Vicious hands meant to hurt and twist the heads and limbs off countless Barbie dolls, Pepto Bismol making for a pink bloodbath but the girls' screams very much real in their bleeding ears, and not seeing this boy's hands, both hidden in his pockets as if at any moment they would whip out like pistols, it unnerved Kurt greatly.

"Sup," began The Boy casually, one voiced from slightly smiling, slightly smirking lips and accompanied with a motionless wave, the naked palm facing front before sinking back into the now bulging short pocket. A few seconds later, a "Hello," was uttered in guarded fashion, reluctance rife within Kurt's bones as with counting seconds, he watched in silence as The Boy flitted his eyes from him to the fountain and back again, his smirk growing, "You want a little help getting your coin back?"

"No, I don't want it back," replied Kurt quickly, barely a glimpse given to his sunken coin as if it was no longer worth anything without a wish attached to it, never mind it's currency, yet even in that fleeting glance could he admire it's beauty against the tiles.

"Why not?" Kurt was quick to swivel his head to face The Boy, his dark brows drawn with curiosity with his position oddly closer than it had been before, perhaps an inch taken towards him, playing even, a Grandma's footsteps champion.

"Because it's bad luck if you take a coin out of a wishing fountain," explained Kurt promptly, yet skilfully, he thought anyway, removing the sense of obviousness from his tone, as if it was a well-known fact, well, amongst dreamers it was.

Yet The Boy was quick to assert as a wise guy might do to earn laughs in a classroom, "It's not a wishing fountain, it's just a fountain." He then took a step forward on the encircling red bricked pathway, leaning his torso forward as he spoke, "I think you're safe."

"I'm not going to risk it. It's just a coin," dismissed Kurt with his body straightening, eyes down, yet with sounds of fast footed footsteps, they shot up to see The Boy jogging up to the fountain's edge beside him, hand out of pocket and into the now splashing water as with his mouth agape, Kurt protested. "What are you doing?!" Yet the boy did not stop, and Kurt through his vehement cries could only look on as the hand rummaged along the tiled floor. "Just leave it in there, I said I don't want-"

"Here you go," breathed The Boy with Kurt's fifty cent coin held before widened blue eyes in dripping wet fingers, and like Kurt had predicted they'd be, they were thick fingers, with nails trimmed and building callouses at the tip. One could tell a lot from someone just from the build of their hands, or so Elizabeth had told him once, and This Boy, just the way he'd shoved his own into the water as if like a hungry animal swiping its depths for fleeing fish, that hand was a great tool in the making.

"Keep it. You earned it," replied Kurt as The Boy replied disdainfully, "I don't want it, it's not my coin."

His tone was quick to match the look he was eyeing it with, turning it around in his fingers, fingers he'd got wet for this boy who no longer wanted it. He could feel the droplets of water trickling down his arm, hanging off his elbow and dropping right in to his lap, but still the boy didn't want it, saying, "It is now, buy anything you want with it but don't expect whatever you spend it on to last long."

"Yeah, I'm really gonna buy big with fifty cents," scoffed The Boy, his eyes squinted, seeing this boy's fair face, the way he was now raising to stand with a hand hanging almost limply from the most delicate looking wrist you'd ever seen on a child, such a flimsy looking thing that could not be manhandled into accepting the coin for fear of snapping it clean off. No good forcing it open either, to dig the coin into its palm enough to cut, to bleed, a palm as soft as flan. This boy was to be handled with care.

"That's the spirit," smiled Kurt sarcastically, quickly taking hold of his teddy bear backpack and slipping it on for it had been dangerously close to falling into the water this Boy had come so close, small splotches of synthetic fur dampened already around the head and stomach by loose water droplets that even in this heat appeared to fade just as slowly as if it were autumn, even winter. "Buy a gumball or a doughnut, though they may just give you half of one. This place is fancy. Have fun."

"No wait, take it," insisted the Boy as he thrust the coin at Kurt, offering it ironically like a beggar begging for money.

Though with a shake of his head, "No, thank you," on his parted lips; Kurt rejected it once again. His feet were stumbling now, wishing to back away on the path, but with a brush of something across his calf, he squealed and looked around, discovering he was only mere inches away from tripping on the many little bushes encircling the fountain, one more step and he would've fallen.

"Take it," insisted the Boy again, harder this time, his fingers now pinching the coin so hard Kurt could see the ends of them whitening he now stood, now approached.

"Leave me alone," Kurt countered, now ready to slap the Boy's hand away.

"I'll throw it back in," the Boy threatened with a nod to the fountain, yet Kurt didn't care, exclaiming, "The water's right there Big Spender," for it was there, a watery grave for a coin trapped in limbo, in-between two fingers, it's ultimate fate decided.

'_Plop!_' And the coin was lying upon the tiled floor once again, though further away in position to the point where Kurt could hardly make it out amongst the haze, the ripples. The throw itself had had force behind it, uncoiled from the shoulder and straight through the arm, unleashed from someone who certainly knew how to throw, that someone sitting beside Kurt as both of them now found themselves looking into the water in such sullen silence it could not be mistaken for much else.

"Not that this wasn't a spectacular waste of time, but I have to go," began Kurt after many seconds of water gazing, almost hypnotic to the point of distraction, but yet not enough to forget the Boy beside him, the heat he gave off, something about him that made Kurt's skin tingle restlessly as if they ought to have been closer, even touching. Yet he turned to Kurt now as the fair boy came to a stand, eyeing him with eyes that pierced it felt, right into the Kurt's very soul. Such handsome eyes.

"Wait," sighed the Boy, his hands diving deep into his pockets and rummaging frenziedly, both now resembling small animals as they writhed impatiently to bring forth a gold dollar coin, its surface dull and shineless but offered before Kurt now as the Boy spoke, "here, take it, make a wish or whatever." Eyes off the coin and Kurt now caught traces of guilt, even apology, a truce of some kind. "I feel bad for earlier, you know, for making you drop your coin… because that was totally me. Sorry."

"Why did you do it?" Asked Kurt quietly, ignoring the coin with all focus on how this boy responded with a shrug, "You were just standing there not doing anything, I thought you'd fallen asleep."

The hand was lowered as he spoke, but quickly rose to its suspended state with the coin at the end, little gestures like little nudges a dog would give its owner with its nose, not aggressive thrusts as they had been previously, but calm as Kurt now replied, his voice a tad cool. "I was about to throw it in."

"No you weren't, you turned away," countered the boy, yet this time, Kurt made no effort to retain an impatient sigh.

"That's how you're supposed to throw coins in. Look," he said, demonstrating as he plucked the coin right out of the Boy's fingers and held it clearly before him, the air of a teacher with too higher nose about him. "You turn your back to the fountain, your wish already in mind and then with your right hand you throw the coin over your left shoulder. How do you not know this?"

"Well because I've always thrown mine in like a normal person," shrugged the Boy with Kurt's unimpressed cocked headed stare only an incentive to have him continue, shifting non chalantly from one leg to the other with casual swag as if, to Kurt, his muscles were like mattresses to buoyant springs underneath. "Just as long as my coin is in the water, I'm happy. I can go eat pizza or steal a Jaguar statuette from the bonnet of some rich dude's car, but your way is good too. Fancy. European."

"You steal car bonnet statuettes," voiced Kurt with every word emphasized disbelievingly, though like before, his reaction only spurred the Boy on, kept his smirk on high and mighty, the attention like food to his cool swung body as he continued, "I also don't wear seatbelts 'cause I'm a badass thrill seeker and I wanna die." It was a response to which Kurt could not respond to himself, his face contorted into a frown which could only ever be seen as cute, as if he'd bitten into something icky sticky.

"You throwing your coin in already. I wanna see this fancy little throw of yours," came the Boy's urging voice, breaking Kurt's face freeze with arrogant enthusiasm, yet this enthusiasm was what Kurt was afraid of, the confidence that it brought along back with it. He didn't want to be scared of this boy, yet those eyes so unrestrained, free to reign. They were insatiable, his nerves now abound in voice as he asked, eye contact broken, shifting, "I'm going to, just… could you stand in front of me."

"Why?" Asked the Boy, still smirking with those hands in his pockets once again, making them bulge. _The animals are only sleeping. They'll wake up soon enough._

Kurt with impatience replied with a hand wildly gesturing, "I don't want you behind me."

To which the boy could only now chuckle his answer out, "Are you afraid I'll catch the coin, 'cause I won't do anything. See, hands in pockets," his hands in the air, surrendering, "not going anywhere. See? Good hands." _Good hands? Yeah right.  
_  
"No I just don't want you to see my…" and Kurt's mouth could not form the word. His tongue too nice, too sweet, too docile and too damn petrified to bring forth attention to _my place. A place so soft, too soft._ "See your what?" Asked the Boy, curiosity trailing those eyes across Kurt's body, to which Kurt himself could not stand, stamping his little foot down with the melodic tinkle of the sandal's buckle, "I don't want you looking at my bottom, so could you please just stand over there!"

"Your 'bottom'? You mean your _butt_?" Corrected the boy as that smirk, broadening from the temporary pause, shone wide, an eyebrow raised, cocky in nature. To Kurt, it was humiliating. Butt. So crude, a word he'd heard older kids use when hanging around in mall parking lots, gas stations and schools. '_Look at the butt on that blonde!' _The word 'boobies' he'd heard thrown around as well, but 'butt'. He could only now brush past it with discomfort settled like led in bone marrow. "Yes, now just-"

"But if I stand over there," interrupted the Boy with a torso swaying from side to side as if he were almost about to pout his lip with eyes huge to boot, just like a child begging for candy. "I won't be able to see it, your cute l'il… 'bottom'." As if Kurt's bottom gave off an actual scent like a dog, his whole being now with the scent of a bitch in heat, and this damn Boy dog here showing up panting and scratching the dirt, the way, Kurt had always found boys to stumble around unconsciously. Anger!

"Forget it, you can have your stupid coin back, it's stinks anyway of palm sweat," cried out Kurt as with it, he marched right up to the Boy, coin ready to return, ready to throw back if needed, _you smug faced stupid head_, as the Boy threw his hands up in surrender.

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry, geez," he chortled, quickly taking up his position in front of the fair boy as sensitive as his snow white skin. "Make your dumb wish already, my eyes are on you and are… definitely… not going down… to your-"

"Seriously?! Are you for real?!" Shouted Kurt angrily, the coin disappeared but suspected to be scrunched up in the ball of his fist as the Boy in front of him shifted into a more casual stance, letting him know, "Okay, okay, my eyes are up." All through the wish they were up. Could have descended the fair boy had his eyes closed with the coin to his chest. So tempting, but upon catching those red lips in motion, like a prayer mumbling away, the Boy could not hide his now chuckling amusement.

"What?" Asked Kurt irritably, his eyes now open with all but an unconvincing dismissal from this Boy.

"Nothing."

This Boy, lowering his head to rid himself of his light bubble of laughter, yet his smile remained stuck as he raised his eyes to meet those clearly not amused, tinted in a brilliant blue though with something hovering over them, in the way, something stark and pitiless as the desert sun, for he knew what he was like to be laughed at, now speaking, "then why are you laughing?"

"Just your wish is all with its Dear Diary theme it's got going on," replied the Boy brazenly to which a frown from Kurt's brows could only respond, the perfect mask to the onset of dread that pulsed down dangerously to the underside of his soft belly.

"You don't even know what it was," he said, all while fighting through the words that whirled in his mind. _My wish is mine and mine alone! You can't take it from me anymore than you could rip a crying baby from its mother's womb! It's all have now!  
_  
"Sure I do," began the Boy. "You wished you wanted this holiday with your parents to go well, that it'll go on to be one of the best holidays you'll have with them and that one you will remember it for a very long time. Oh, and that you see as little of the 'annoying boy who's way too tanned to be white' as possible." Said with such accuracy, Kurt not comprehend, mouth agape, his wish dying as the Boy frowned, "I'm not too tanned am I? There's got to be a little vanilla on me somewhere."

"You read lips?!" Kurt exclaimed incredulously, near to hysteria, the blood of his now dying wish on those damned smirking lips, the Boy now defended with a pointed finger.

"Dude, come on, have you seen the lips on you? Whoa momma, easy on the man lipstick." To which Kurt could now only scream himself, for goodness had he had enough off defending himself.

"I don't wear lipstick, and no I don't eat red Crayola crayons, and yes, I can take my head out of a cherry pie every once in a while!"

"You like cherries?" The Boy asked with a grin.

"No!" Screamed Kurt, his temper, it seemed, bellowing the breeze into a higher gust where all nearby birds had since taken flight and the Arecaceae rustled restlessly, whining, and all from a body as small as he was. Impressive really. Then there was silence. It seemed quick to descend, and Kurt welcomed it as if was something beautiful to him, the coin digging into his fisted palm enough to hurt. The silence, now easing his breathing, his anger, his-

"How about potatoes?" Kurt's brow drawn glare of confusion, his exhaustion from the heat as well as this entire encounter could not muster another forced word, pulling his face into asking 'what the hell?' For it was clear he would not be able to ask such a question with that word in it, not even if he replaced it with 'heck'. To the Boy, it was touching to behold, _so cute!_ Continuing in light defense. "What? Potatoes are right on, man. Cut them up and fry 'em and you've really got something."

"Well that's it, you know my wish, it can't come true," sighed Kurt as he sat back down on the fountain's edge, coin in his reddened palm, his hands given up as if they themselves were being treated from injuries instead of an harmed animal.

"It's no big deal, you haven't thrown the coin in. You can always make another one. A better one," voiced the Boy awkwardly optimistic, feigning for his comfort as Kurt replied, "I don't want a 'better' one. I want the one I wanted in the beginning."

"Why, it was so hella lame," replied the Boy. "You gotta wish big, like I don't know, have a giant robot Triceratops suddenly crawl out of the sea onto the beach wearing bulletproof ammo on its back shooting missile targeted rocket launchers at the robot Tyrannosaurus Rex before it reaches the hotel from its journey of destruction through the town that once was Coronado." Finishing with a sense of accomplishment about him, the boy smiled brightly, "Pretty cool wish, huh. You go."

"I…" began Kurt, for it was harder for others to spout such nonsense, and to match the same passion, the bar raised high, yet he gave in to the Boy's awaiting face. "Fine, I wish a giant spaceship suddenly appeared from a darkened cloud, lasered the hotel out of the ground and lifted it right into space by chains where everyone would wear air bubbles, whilst you'd be stuck down here with your robot dinosaurs getting trampled to death as they'd spiral out of control. How does that sound?"

"Awesome. Just don't tell me next time, otherwise it won't come true. I don't think you've quite grasped that part yet," smirked the Boy, and watching, perhaps even reveling in the sight of this fair boy with air so irritated, those fingers twitching dangerously to grab and throw him into the water if they were only strong enough, saying, "And I don't think you've grasped that only wishes within reason have a chance of making it, not those that you've probably doodled on your test papers."

"Who says they do?" Asked the Boy rhetorically, nearing Kurt as he spoke. "Not all wishes come true princess, not even some of your Barney wishes, and though it probably doesn't help to make them in a fake wishing fountain, at least mine had kiss ass dinosaur robots in it, what does yours have? Happy time with the folks and 'help! Get this ass staring kid away from me.' I could follow you around this hotel and make sure you see me every day until you leave, it wouldn't be hard. Could be fun."

"And that would be your idea of a vacation? Stalking some random boy," answered Kurt challengingly with arms crossed, his hip popped and watching as the Boy shrugged a casual reply, flicking a look over at the hotel as he did.

"I've beaten every round of Dance Dance Revolution since I got here. I've gone surfing, I've gone water skiing, I even rented and crashed one of their bikes into a cactus which I'm pretty sure I killed." The boy snorted in remembrance, "God, those things are sharp."

"But why?" Asked Kurt with a step taken forward, the insistence almost strenuous sounding in his voice and detracting from any sense of anger he'd put forth. Like a child wishing to know why their parents were ignoring them, even punishing them to the dark crevice of the room's corner, Kurt looked upon the Boy with desperate eyes, and to which the Boy could only respond, shrugging yet again, "I don't know…" Those blue eyes now dulling from the answer, "… but you're interesting."

"You're just a creep in the making aren't you," huffed Kurt, how the word interesting now meant 'entertainment food' in the eyes of this Boy, the way Kurt's feet would turn inward was 'interesting', the way his eyes blazed blue, his _ass_, yet this Boy himself was quick to reply promptly back, rocking casually on the soles of his feet.

"And you're just one hopscotch jump away from a Disney princess wishing upon a star for a singing bug or a parsnip carriage. Something's gotta give sometime."

Exactly what the Boy meant by this, Kurt didn't know, but it put him on edge, now lessened somewhat as with the breeze brought with it his mother's voice, shouting out to him, "Kurt!" His name let known clearly as he looked round to see her once again waving him over. "Kurt, come on! We'll be late for dinner! You can always come back tomorrow!" And Kurt with an obedient nod responded, yet with the sudden recollection of the Boy's dollar coin in hand, he returned it, his palm open.

"You can have it back," Kurt said, gesturing it out to the Boy, yet the Boy only eyed it with a frown.

"You didn't make another wish."

Kurt was about to protest, and hastily, yet genuine emotion lay inscribed upon those tanned features, that non chalant stance stricken with anxiousness. The Boy wanted Kurt to make a wish with his coin. Giving it back would only be the most effective insult he could throw at this boy, and Kurt did not wish to hurt as he now replied quietly, "… you're right, I didn't."

With coin to chest, his own breathing beating little chest, Kurt took a step back and with eyes closed, a new wish was made, and a silent wish it was this time, with no illustration upon his slightly upturned lips that quivered excitedly under the hazel gaze it felt so heavily. The waters behind him would know, since lit from within, tinting the hazing mist a mellow apricot glow with the sunset itself dying, the sky darkening. The late hour was fast approaching, yet he wished on until with irises bursting forth with the flicker of cathedral candles, like the genuine sapphires of his golden paper crown brought alive, he threw the coin with his right hand across his left shoulder into the fountain, a soundless entrance as it entered the rippling waters.

_I watched him scamper off like a little mouse with those buckled sandals that sang like xylophone keys and those tight shorts framing a butt so petite, his teddy bear back pack hung so low it bounced off it with every step, all the while running without looking back, just like that, without even looking back at me. And I stood there watching him go as I had done in that Kid- crapia dungeon, back to the safety of his parents. God, I just wanted to grab the little thing and hold him close, see him squirm until he'd wear himself out. Cause this guy had nothing to fear. I was just kidding around. I wasn't gonna hurt him. Honest. I'm cool. I'm totally cool. People get hypothermia from looking at me 'cause I'm that cool. We could get along, 'cause… I see it._

* * *

**~ PLEASE REVIEW ~**

(But if you wish to criticize, may it be constructive. I'm not going to learn from my mistakes and improve if you vent.)

**Author's Note: **Hey, everyone! I'm back on the fan fiction scene with my new Puckurt story I hope you will all love. The idea for it came to me as I was finishing up on my previous work W_MHS: The Tyrant of my Heart_ where upon I spent several months planning it before I began writing last fall. It's still not complete as of yet, which is a first for me as I've always finished my stories before uploading, but then again I've always ended up re-writing them so I will be taking my time with this one. The story is my first of the Romance/Friendship genre, my second Alternate Universe (AU) after _New York City: Strut Your Way to Love _and is rated Mature (M) for strong language, strong sexual themes, reference to alcohol and drugs, mature and crude humor, gambling and violence. Note that the majority of the spoken humor has been taken from Tumblr text posts and adapted for the story along with an abundant use of surfer slang and Californian lingo.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own the rights to the characters from Glee as I don't own the show. I'm not earning money from this and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.  
**  
~ STAY TUNED FOR MORE BY FOLLOWING/FAVORITING ~**


	2. Noah

**SOMEDAY**

**THE CHILD  
**_2001_

**II**

**~ Noah ~**

The next day was spent at the hotel, though a day having started late due to Burt's long lie in. Mouth agape and quietly snoring, the man had worn nothing on his upper body with the blanket only coming up mid chest, his forearm covering his eyes as if shielding them from the sun no longer kept at bay behind the open curtains. Both Elizabeth and Kurt had giggled on many ways to wake him up, water to the face or simply throwing Kurt onto his stomach enough to have him vomit last night's food, yet a pillow attack struck out, and growls befitting a waking beast had sounded, the stirring of the slumber stricken body as pillows had come down upon the man with enough playful energy to have them nearly burst their feathery insides. _Poof! _

Kurt had laughed, he'd screamed and he'd squealed as Burt had yanked him into a cuddle with strong arms never letting go, and Elizabeth too, both of them trying to escape in vain as they were encased in the man's grip, playful punishment for having disturbed his sleep and ending with many a time nearly rolling off the mattress onto the floor below, but soon enough the beast had risen and the bed had been made, Kurt had been plopped into a bubble bath with his mother kneeling by the tub styling his shampoo fluffed hair into different shapes and now down to brunch as it was too late for breakfast, Burt's early morning plans scuffed out as with a rumbling stomach, he led them all down with extra care not to run into the neighbors.

Continuously voted San Diego's best brunch by _San Diego Magazine _and _The San Diego Union-Tribune_ readers, The Del's brunch had been long standing a favorite, pleased to offer seven distinct dining stations that created an interactive and luxurious progressive dining experience featuring seasonal chef's compositions and fresh local ingredients to "bring the kitchen into the room", that room being the Crown Room, considered the masterpiece of the architects Reid & Reid, and whose wooden ceiling allegedly had been installed with mere pegs and glue with not a single nail used throughout its entire construction. Yet with its crown shaped chandeliers and Persian inspired floral carpet, it was a fact many a time overlooked.

Kurt wove his way through each and every dining station in the room, admiring the silverware and presentation of the food with almost no intention of taking any of it, for it was too aesthetically pleasing to disturb, like museum art meant not to touch. Yet others touched, and to his reluctance so did he, ruining the displays, but bringing about a delicious palate of pancakes and fruit soon placed upon the white table cloth as with a watering mouth, he made quick work of eating to the smallest granular spec of powdered sugar and up! For seconds, questions regarding what had occurred yesterday afternoon at the Orange Avenue Fountain spurring his little legs that much faster as his mother watched him intently, her eyes amused.

The talk of the fountain, "It was a cute little fountain, don't you think so Kurt?" The talk of wishes, "Did you ever make a wish in the end?" To the mention of the Boy or 'new buddy' as Burt had named him, "Do you know that boy from somewhere?" It all brought about features in her son she knew all too well. He'd already claimed upon even the mention of coins that if he'd had a dollar for every time someone had said something stupid he'd be a millionaire by age two and now just watching as he hovered around the various dining stations with a full plate, now only cooling, hovering some more, wondering around the large hot chocolate pot, stalling, and shooting them fleeting glances to see if they'd switched topic of conversation, guessing.

Oh Kurt. As if she didn't know exactly what he was doing, how silly he looked, as if he couldn't remember where his table was and only returning when he'd found himself queuing for something he didn't even want, fleur de sel from the salt bar it looked like that had Elizabeth laughing. Naïve as her son was as he returned, he believed it so be something his father had said, though with coffee held casually in hand, a look of reserved thought on Burt's face as he stared into the distance and Kurt dismissed it altogether, for his mother was quirky enough to be those who spontaneously burst into laughter upon a funny thought, or of course, there was him, her boy doll nervous on his little feet and stomach already full of chocolate sauce.

Yet just the mention of that _Boy_, the real sweetener to his mother's teasing tongue, _Boy._ It intrigued her. Just like it had intrigued both Burt as they'd watched the fountain encounter from the Cadillac Elderado, for this Boy, whoever he was, was just as much an enigma to Kurt as Kurt was to many other children and it unnerved him, Elizabeth now asking quietly, "the boy you were talking to Kurt, what was his name?" The syrup seemed to thicken in his throat. "Is he staying here at the hotel?" A long gulp of milk to ease its treacle like consistency down, yet swallowing so fast it burned. "Was he in Kidtopia with you?" And off Kurt was up again quick enough to nearly knock his chair to the floor in the wake of his mother's growing smile.

He held no plate in his little hands, with no appetite left to near one of the dining stations even if he had one, just an aimless route that had him greeting the surf and the meats, the scrambled eggs, and the California and Baja cheeses, all offering relief from Elizabeth's questions about that Boy whom he wished to not to think about with his stupid smirk and coin spouting pockets. The dollar coin that had left that copper smell on his fingers. _Was I supposed to wash them clean with soap, or wash my mouth out with the back of my toothbrush until my tongue swelled? The wish I'd made dirty like the ruddy dollar coin, dirty like a boy. _Looking at his fingers now, rolling his tongue around his mouth, Kurt sighed. Clean fingers, clean mouth. Polished._  
_  
With eyes now peering into the blackcurrant juice tank as if goldfishes were swimming within, Kurt straightened with eyes wondering tiredly, stretching the far expanses of the room, but freezing in mid pan, his heart beating in his skin, for not too far away by the entrees was the Boy, tapping his plate against his thigh as he wondered about whistling, his head swiveling, searching eyes, those hazel eyes so hungry as they gorged themselves over the toasted coconuts and waffles, travelling over to the glazed ham, and to the juices with the familiar back of a fair boy blocking the third tank as he filled a glass long enough it seemed to overflow it, peering peripheral looks over his shoulder until his light blue eyes were caught and forced around.

He appeared as fair as he had the other day by the fountain, clothed differently but still as if his outfit had been left to fade in the scorching sun the colors were that pale, yet with the same buckled sandals, roman-esque, kindergarten, Lottie like and cute on those tiddy biddy feet. Whilst the Boy himself, Kurt was quick to observe, had only changed his tee shirt, with those same cargo shorts on, those flip flops and surfer beaded necklace once again on show, yet all modeled differently in a way from before, Kurt could not pinpoint as the Boy made his way over, his plate still empty as it hung by his side, yet brought up to cover his stomach as with a sudden grumbling, it sounded his hunger, Kurt now looking on with perplexed amusement.

"Sorry, I get hungry real fast after boogie boarding," chuckled the Boy nervously, looking up from his talking stomach to have Kurt ask, "You boogie board?" It would explain the surfer jewelry the Boy had on.

"Nah, I'm way more into surfing. You don't have to wear those swim fin things that make it look like you have duck feet and it's just cooler when you're standing on the board riding that wave like it's your bitch and one day, I wanna be able to do the tube ride. Just barrel through one. _Bam_!"

"Well… good for you," nodded Kurt, his fingers slowly turning his juice filled glass, with no intention of drinking from it, acting more as a prop, something for his hands to hold as the glass rotated, it's grooved design like uneven terrain on his fingers. "I'd say eat up for your strength and all but if you're planning on going back out there in the next hour, I'd probably hold off on the food. We wouldn't want you sinking to the bottom…" He finished, his finger now pointing down to the floor. "… _bam_."

"You think I'd fall?" Asked the Boy with a brow raised, Kurt's own gaze lowering to the surface of his juice.

"You have to fall to get back up again," he answered quietly.

"But you'd like to see me fall wouldn't you?" The words were enriched somehow by the smirk the Boy was wearing, as if believing Kurt wished him harm, to throw the juice in his face, to smash the plate over his head, _to watch you drown like my coin you drowned_, but Kurt was not at all like that, his heart too young, his soul too soft.

"I'd like to see how the waves would react to you calling them your 'bitch'," he replied though with the way he'd said 'bitch' you could have sworn it had been the first time he'd ever said it. "Never underestimate the sea, because it can swallow you up, spit out your board and surf trunks and have you walking out of its waters naked if it wanted, and I'd guess that would be far more embarrassing having everyone on a crowded beach looking at your dinky doo than the talking tummy rumbles."

"I don't know, the tummy rumbles are pretty embarrassing, like farting, but it's in your tummy," joked the Boy smiling as Kurt's confident air only broke with a grimace. "Oh yeah, next time you have the rumbles, grab the flab of your belly and mould it into a mouth. It'll totally look like it's talking Aztec or something." Illustrating all the while, the Boy's free hand lay atop his belly. "And when the rumbling stops, just draw a face on it and pretend to feed it with pizza. It's so frickin funny."

"You did that?" Asked Kurt, smiling reluctantly, ashamedly, but smiling all the same as the Boy answered, "Yeah, I drew the eyes on my nipples and the mouth across my tummy button. Tomato and cheese all across my stomach with little pieces of meatballs that kept falling off." Kurt couldn't help the laughter, now stifling his mouth as the Boy went on, "My mom totally freaked when she found me. Thought I'd got the plague or something. That and the meatballs weren't kosher klop meatballs."

"You're Jewish?" Asked Kurt surprised, for this Boy didn't appear Jewish. More a child of mother California where the waves were celebrated from underneath board balancing feet, where everyone hung loose on Aloha greeted beaches, the 'Shaka' instead of 'Shalom', but "Shalom," now said as the Boy bowed with his hands pressed in mock prayer, the white china plate under his arm, Kurt now asking, "then why is your mom letting you eat here? She has had a look at the food about right?"

"Nah, I'm here with my dad," replied the Boy as with a finger, he pointed over to one of the tables in the center of the room where there sat a man with his back to them, what looked to be from this distance a mobile phone pressed to his ear, a head that often nodded from conversation and a face Kurt wondered looked anything like his son. "It's just us staying. He's not as harsh with the whole kosher thing. We like our pizza too much without those klop balls all over them. Bad Jews that way."

"You know, one time my mom ordered two different pizzas from two different places because she had coupons and they both got to the house at the same time, so we had a Pizza Hut delivery guy and a Dominos delivery guy both standing at our front door," recounted Kurt with blue eyes livened. "And just like that the Dominos guy began singing 'Why Can't We Be Friends?' to the Pizza Hut guy who just… well, who just glared at him…" He paused, feeling as if the story could have been applied here.

"Where is your mom?" Asked the Boy, the question chuckled out, the same chuckles from Kurt's tale, for he'd laughed and how very different the fair boy looked when he'd been telling it, now pointing a finger himself across the room.

"Over there with my dad by the window," Kurt said on tip toes. "She's all for pizza. I mean her mind says Victoria Secret's model but her mouth just goes for the pizza. She thinks it's one of the greatest inventions behind matte nail polish and George Clooney."

"Damn it, now I'm hungry for pizza. Do they have any here?" Asked the Boy, his head once again swiveling on the search for pepperoni, tomato and melted cheese, for the sight of circular crust with his eyes darting so quickly it had Kurt answering, "no, but they have lobster. Try eating that with your tummy flab."

A lopsided grin was soon to respond with a shrug, an air totally casual as the Boy now replied, "Lobsters are just fat spray tanned scorpions and I could totally take on a scorpion."

"It's alright, I'm pretty sure this one's dead. See, they even give you delicious butter to eat it with," showed Kurt, hurrying over to one of the dining stations where there in its center lay the lobster, a big boy of a creature, surrounded by cheese tortellini, pine nuts and sun dried tomatoes.

"Nah, lobster just tastes like feet to me," replied the Boy, eyeing the creature with an unimpressed gaze and sniffing it with a pinched nose as Kurt sighed, "It's clearly too refined for your crude taste buds."

"Whatever man, if they can taste the awesomeness that is a slice of double doughed Margherita and away from food that smells of underarm, I'm one happy dude. Crude all the way," smiled the Boy, Kurt replying, "Good luck with that."

It was a distracted response, but looking over now to his parent's table and Kurt knew they were anxious for his return, yet in mid leave and he was stopped, a hand on his arm, kept there and firm as the Boy pleaded, "no wait, I want you to meet my dad."

"Why? I have my own parents to get back to and I think they miss me over there," protested Kurt with his fair face pulled in tremulous discomfort. He could see his mother's anxious eyes as she looked over blindly, for another dining station was in the way, blocking her view as the Boy now pleaded again, his hold on Kurt never loosening, "I know, but I kinda told him about you and the way you made wishes. Said you should have chucked me in the way I was with you, that or wish for land sharks."

"Land sharks?" Frowned Kurt as his resistance waned upon his curiosity, the Boy now removing his hand as he replied but remaining as close as he was to Kurt as if fearing he'd flee if given too much space.

"A surfer's nightmare, man. I mean they're freaky enough with their jaws but give 'em legs and we'd all be hella fucked." Quick to set aside his glass on the table, Kurt brought a finger to his lips. "Shhh, you're not supposed to cuss like that here, there're people around. It's a bad word."

"Okay then, shut the fudge up you little astronaut. What the helicopters are you doing? You son of a batch of cookies," joked the Boy, grinning pleasurably upon Kurt's laughter as the fair boy asked through his amusement,

"Does your dad know you swear?"

The Boy glanced over at his father still talking animatedly away on his cell, his loud laughter his son could even hear from here as he scoffed. "Please, I got half the library from him. Come on, I want you guys to meet. Are you eating anything?"

"Oh, I've already eaten," answered Kurt, the white chocolate confetti, the pecans and powdered sugar settled nicely within him as he glanced around the various stations with no effort to pick up his discarded juice glass. "I'm only over here because my mom wouldn't stop asking me about you. She saw us by the fountain yesterday and wanted to know who you were and what happened, but I wasn't up for talking, came here and bumped into you. Makes me think she planned this out all along."

"Dude, a scheming pizza eating mom, she sounds way cool," Smiled the Boy, yet ceasing upon Kurt's frustration as he huffed.

"I have a name you know-" His words were cut upon the realization that no, this Boy did not know his name, now stumbling out his question, "What have you been referring to me as to your dad?" Labels perhaps, pretty imaginative labels out to ridicule his face framed like a lady's, lips of a lady, shade and all, wishing demeanor of a princess. "_Princess" he called me-_

"Kurt, that's your name… _Kurt_… right?" Asked the Boy with blue eyes wide and doll like, blinking in surprise, blinking, for of course. His mother's call at the fountain, "_Kurt!_", the name repeated on the Boy's rolling tongue as he'd stared at the dollar coin in the fountain for several minutes, hands in pockets now speaking as he introduced himself. "I'm Noah, like the religious dude who saved a bunch of animals with his ark when God went totally ape shit with genocide. Great story for us kids."

Kurt's smile was weak upon Noah's attempted humor, yet upon the name in his mind and he frowned. It was odd to refer to this Boy as anything but "the Boy". Noah sounded like too nicer a name for his character. That his name would be like a weak kid on the playground. Chased after and viciously pulled apart letter by letter to form another, a name more befitting, but regardless Kurt mulled it over in his mind, echoing it through his skull. _Noah_. Hazel eyed surfer dude, Noah. It wasn't bad.

"Look, I know I've been a jerk, but I'm a cool guy," began Noah, Kurt now blinking from out of his thoughts. "I respect the sea and I can totally fall to make it look like a kick ass move. I can do other cool stuff with my belly flab like make the folds look like a botched lip job and at sleepovers, when it's like four in the morning and everyone is trying to get to sleep, I'll totally be the guy to say something like "ass butter" out loud and have you laughing until you puke. Whadya think? Pretty cool, huh?"

"I guess," replied Kurt unsure, voice quiet as he spoke. "I think you'd know more about it than I would. I'm kind of boring. All I do is wonder if my sarcasm's gotten to a point where I don't even know if I'm kidding or not, because I'm like that a lot if you haven't already noticed."

Noah was quick to grin, finding this fair boy increasingly endearing as he chuckled. "That's cool. All I wonder about is if China has fancy plates called 'America'. Let me just swoop some food real quick and we'll go okay."

All dining stations were visited, with flashes of hunger darting across Noah's eyes on every stop, a comical look Kurt found, especially when it was contorted into one of repulsion over the garden dishes, the likes of the Cauliflower Au Gratin and Bloomsdale Spinach Salad. Yet it didn't take long for the plate to fill, near to overfilling at times. Oh how it nearly came close with the mountain of pancakes the boy had ladled on, the berry compote, the whipped butter, teetering dangerously on the chocolate sauce slick china that had the muscles in Noah's arms strained as he made their way over to his father's table on slow feet, Kurt, growing anxious the heavy plate would fall, keeping a watchful eye, both their little faces so concentrated.

Thomas Puckerman, the man who was darkly handsome like his son, with thick classic cut hair, fleshy smiling lips, the man whose brown irised gaze locked with Kurt's upon their arrival was quick to stand with cell put away and smiling a Hollywood smile. He was in his mid-thirties, had an actor's face with a certain posed assurance, and wore a white linen short sleeved shirt, belted beige shorts and flip flops, like a male model posing in the hotel brochure, this man who was so ever friendly and charming too, grasped hold of Kurt's little hand as if positioned for a hand kiss, speaking with enthusiasm as Noah introduced them once settling his plate on the table and there was Kurt, caught in-between, the attention of both males, swamping him.

Of course the boy could not get over the resemblance. Both father and son, so similar in the face, their Puerto Rican like skin tones to they're Californian vernacular, and so easily free they were together as if they'd hit it off only just yesterday. It was a father son relationship that was theirs, the teasing of best friends, and beside them was their guest, wide eyes so glassy blue, blood shaded lips, skin of a Botticelli maiden and Thomas found himself staring, Noah too through his many cheek bursting mouthfuls of food. Their little guest, sitting so small in his chair with hands placed in his lap spoke only when addressed, and nodding as frequently as when the occasion merited it, so many with Thomas's continuous stream of amusing anecdotes.

Arrived only three days earlier at the Hotel Del Coronado and staying for two weeks, the Puckerman's were regular California vacationers from Dallas Texas where Thomas owned his own thriving independent record company, "Puckerman Records", said with such pride in the voice, it was as if the man were the CEO of a much larger organization. His wife, Connie, was at home with their new born child, Sarah, having not wished to travel so early on after the birth but having encouraged her 'best boys' to have fun on their stay with the promise that they'd bring her back photographs of the trip, the camera now raised as Kurt and Noah were pushed close together for a picture, the button pressed with the flash instant and bright enough to blind.

In its cheesy wake and Thomas would soon excuse himself for food. Yet upon his return and he noticed immediately that by degrees Noah had since shifted his chair closer to Kurt's, sliding his half eaten plate along with him across the table. His son, dark hair smelling of sea water he hadn't rinsed out, his breath smelling of chocolate. Noah, with that surfer necklace hanging loosely from his neck girls found cool, that goofy smile, America's handsome little dude, sharing the remains of his food with this little creature. One picking at the pancakes, often raising his fingers to his lips, then lowering them, only to nervously laugh upon Noah's words, and crude words most likely for Thomas knew his son. He knew when Noah was making a friend.

_He certainly was odd, this Kurt kid. Certainly not a Dallas kid. Not the kind of kid Noah would hang out with at school. He'd be too "intense". The only one never to miss a class, and always early, sometimes before the room was unlocked, I'd guess. The only one to show up "perfectly groomed". One to be so shy at times he'd jump startled at the sound of laughter. Wouldn't know how to even play like a normal kid, the others letting him know, "you don't belong. You're a freak!" But he would throw your heart out of rhythm; fuck your soul up with a single look, for damn was he a cute kid. His slaggering lack of masculinity adorable and a real looker with those magnificent eyes so dream like. Enough to have stolen my son with them. Even me…_

The boy's parents were soon to appear at their table, ceasing Thomas's contemplation as if his attention had strayed beyond the power to draw it. They were Burt and Elizabeth Hummel, a couple with such warmth to them they would not look out of place in a family comedy, the father with a rumbling laughter that seemed to brew from the bowels of his gut to the mother with a feminine beauty of a Gil Elvgren pinup, a cheesecake model. _Mmm!_ Thomas's handsome smile grew pleasurably over shaking hands and he extended an invitation to them both for a late afternoon tour of the hotel Noah and he had previously offered to Kurt just now, for such a large hotel it was. A large maze to lose yourself in. One had to know their way around.

And oh, of course! "That would be lovely, Mr. Puckerman. Thank you," Elizabeth replied, sweetly, the Hummel's soon parting and waving goodbye as away Kurt left with his hand encased in his mother's, the boy in his own hurried yet sleepwalking way looking round at the Puckerman's before disappearing through the door. And oh how the Puckerman's had watched, the way Noah had _watched_, his hazel eyes almost yearning. How mother's at passing tables had observed the fair boy with the cutest face and trotting feet, an early beauty yes, now turning to his mother as she asked, smiling cheekily, though she already knew the answer, "What was your friend's name again, sweetie? I forgot." "Noah," Kurt replied, smiling widely. "His name is Noah."

**.**

**Glee**

**.**

San Diego! America's Finest City! And the birthplace of California, with its deep water harbor the realm of the U.S. Navy, the home to many white ships docked and sailing like ducklings in the bay. Its extensive beaches, Mission, Moonlight, Pacific, all so popular with busy boardwalks that creaked charm and roller coaster excitement! And its neck craning skyscrapers those of the One America Plaza and Symphony Towers resembling on the skyline as sharp tools jutting out from an overstuffed toolbox, piercing the sky and leaking sunshine in waves as once again the temperatures sizzled upon its many dense urban streets. _Ooh! Hot! Hot!_ Too hot to walk barefoot on like stepping on the embers of a fire as into the shade there was relief.

The Hummel's were only out for a stroll after their early brunch. Along sidewalks that would lead them wherever, to the open air ballpark of Petco Park to the Alcarzar Garden and tropical trails of Palm Canyon, a city map in Burt's hand that would open rarely to help direction them throughout the walk to instead opt and ask the people, and such friendly people. Good looking too. Most of them Hispanic with bronzed skin tones that accentuated muscle for these were outgoing people. Knew the city inside and out. All the best places to visit, all the sights to see they claimed were not often included in many of the "places to visit" brochures handed to tourists as they pointed them to the real city adventures, parting, "Tenga un bueno dia y adios!"

They would venture along the bay where all the expensive yachts were harbored, seeing which one was the largest, the biggest! The whitest! And stopping at the Seaport Village, a waterfront shopping complex architecturally designed in an assortment of delightful Victorian and traditional Mexican buildings that if you forgot about San Diego, would become a quaint hamlet indeed in Mexico, goats and lambs that jangled their bells around their necks sipping at the water fountain beside little girls in embroidered peasant dresses where hidden in the square was the Louff Carousel, it's Broadway flying horses so beautiful with coiffed carved manes so blonde Kurt would smile as on he'd climb and around and around he'd fly.

Perhaps in this whirlwind of excitement, the hooves of this flamboyant cavalry like hip-hop beats to his ears, Kurt would see a haze, a fleeting escape to La Jolla, one of San Diego's affluent neighborhoods. It was a hilly seaside resort, a little kingdom by the sea they'd ride to with no care in the world. And there was much to see and in so little time. The Christian cross on Mount Soledad, the cove where the sea lions lay, the large playhouse, the shores that would blow spray in their faces, covering their skin with moisture with the wind whipping, glistening tears on Kurt's cheeks for his sensitive eyes watered easily and how fast he was spinning on these stallions, those tears observers would think of happiness let loose like liquid glitter. Like diamonds!

And fast, on the shuttle back home to Coronado. _Quick, quick, quick_! Returning to the hotel fifteen minutes late at 5:15pm to meet the Puckerman's by the main entrance, Thomas and Noah awaiting them, though not with expressions of impatience but with grins, having past the time recounting the best aerial surfs they'd seen demonstrated by professionals on their own trip down to Pacific Beach earlier that day. Those of the Superman Air. The Sushi Roll. The Rodeo Flip. Noah in mid move as the Hummel's approached them, an adventure flushed family with heat that had taken its toll on Burt, his forehead, nose, and cheeks all sun burnt but since treated with Noxzema Elizabeth had rubbed gently into his smarting skin on the journey back.

Thomas would laugh amongst them, smiling, "Yeah, the sun here can get some getting used to." Recounting it had taken a couple days for his wife to darken without burning for she too had light skin. How she envied the coloring of her husband and son, that sun kissed look that now Sarah had also. And Elizabeth inquired keenly after their baby daughter, wincing upon hearing it had been a difficult birth with a labor that had lasted several hours, unlike it had been with Noah, who allegedly couldn't wait to enter the world, shooting out from the womb as if on a banzai speed water slide even before the delivery room doors had swung shut behind them and right into the nurse's cradling arms, "Quite a trooper," she'd said, laughing.

All three adults now laughed as Thomas ruffled his son's dark hair and Noah too smiled, his eyes searching for Kurt. Yet only peering around Elizabeth did he find him, brushing down his clothes punctiliously and feeling at his eyes dried crusted tears he subtly brushed away with fumbling fingers. Noah would frown, rounding the Hummel's and coming to stand before the boy, his own flip flops sprinkled in dry sand left from the beach, the briny salty smell of the ocean on him and his clothes he had not showered off. Yet it was a scent Kurt's nostrils would not pinch at. He'd grown used it. A slight difference between it and previous beaches he'd visited on the east coast, that of Coney Island and Cape Hatteras. Here, the sea scent was exotic.

_Noah himself I found exotic. A creature like those surfers were on their boards. Someone from a strange land I had been wary of, who was now asking me, "Dude, are you okay?" An exotic boy I was now "friends" with, for we were, weren't we? I'd eaten pancakes off his plate earlier at brunch. He'd fetched me the glass I'd left behind on one of the dining stations when I'd needed a drink. And now he was concerned after I was exhibiting signs of distress. He was there peering at the corners of my eyes as I smiled and insisted I was alright, "I'm alright," and I laughed as his face neared mine closely with a tight lipped grin pulled wider and wider in silly mockery of himself as my laughter mounted, my blue eyes lightening in a way I never understood. _

"They're just sensitive," said Kurt, all of them now promenading around the Windsor lawn on their tour, Thomas beside Burt and Elizabeth as he'd point to many areas, but to the two boys trailing slowly behind, barely anything he said was registered. "It's annoying because people think I'm crying, but I'm not."

Noah nodded. "I get that too, but when I'm sleeping. A lone tear will fall on my pillow and I'll think, "Whoa hold up body, I'm not that sad."

"Yes," Kurt replied, "Exactly. It's strange, isn't it."

"Kinda," Noah conceded, "but you know what's even weirder. To think you might be drinking the water someone drowned in. Or that you might be breathing in the same air that last left a dying person's lungs. Or that gift you gave someone that was wrapped in recycled paper might have been someone's suicide note. Or that the Box jellyfish has sixty four butt holes."

Kurt scoffed. "They do not."

"Sure they do," Noah insisted, "Sixty four pooping butt holes as they go around oceans stingin people."

"Is it true peeing on the sting can help?" Kurt asked wincing as Noah shrugged.

"Dunno, dude. Box jellyfishes are real bad ass stingers. Most venomous out there. I think you'd have to do a lot better than pee, but then there are times when you gotta pee like thirty five times so you might as well put all that stuff to good use. Extra concentrated super pee."

Kurt frowned, looking at him. "Thirty five times? Really?"

"Yeah," Noah replied, tilting his head confused. "What is up with those days?"

"Your bladder Olympics," Kurt shrugged, "I don't know. It's weird."

"Wanna know more weird stuff?" Grinned Noah as Kurt smiled, "Go on."

"Cooleo. Okay, what if bagels are just acoustic donuts? Or bicycles are just acoustic motorcycles? What if books are just dead tattooed trees and bouquets are flower corpses killed in their mating ritual?" Kurt smile grew. "What if spoons are little bowls on sticks and swans are larger, sexier ducks? Oh! And what if mascots are just jock approved furries?"

"You just humped my mind," muttered Kurt, now blushing into his giggles as he took in Noah's raised brow.

"I mean… Gee, I've never thought of all those things in that way before. That's so cool."

Noah grinned. "Totally."

"Do you know any more?"

"Well my mom is kinda self-conscious about the stretch marks she has left from her long pregnancy but I keep on telling her they aren't stretch marks as much as they are sick ass lightening tattoos."

"Oooh!" Kurt squealed, happily. "I like that one."

"You like words?" Noah asked. Kurt nodded.

"I do. Especially if they're witty like yours."

Noah snorted "Pfft. I say crap like this all the time in class. Guess what kind of math trees do, miss. Twigonometry, Square roots, Geometree. And my teacher, she get so mad. She's always telling me to just shut up."

Kurt giggled, his face soon that of pity. "Really?"

"Don't feel bad," Noah chuckled happily. "I do it to drive her crazy. She says every time I speak an angel gets its period. Dunno what that is though."

"She doesn't like your talent for language, does she?" Kurt asked as Noah shrugged.

"Nah, if I want anyone to appreciate my talent for anything I want to be for surfing and food."

"You cook?"

"I eat. Nom, Nom, Nom."

Kurt laughed. "That's not talent, Noah. That's just your tummy."

"My tummy's got talent too, bro," Noah protested. "When I drink a lotta milk my tummy goes sploosh, sploosh."

Kurt rolled his eyes. "I think you got your answer to your peeing thirty five times in a day phenomenon."

"Oh yeah, but I gotta get my coolcium, Kurt. That's the sacrifice I gotta make to feed my bones with liquid cool," Noah replied, feeling down his arms as Kurt frowned.

"Don't you mean calcium?"

"No. I mean, coolcium."

"Sounds like something parents would use to encourage their children to drink milk."

Noah shrugged. "They're the ones who've got parenting down, cause milk is awesome. Though too much of it kinda makes finishing cereal before it gets soggy the most stressful thing in life, so…"

"Or finishing pancakes drenched in a sea of maple syrup," Kurt replied, shortly. "You put so of it much on, it was like a race."

Noah now grinned, apologetically. "Sorry. I would have finished it, I just had to make room for chocolate tart."

"How are you not fat?"

"No but seriously, the chocolate tarts are amazing, dude," the tan boy insisted, eagerly. "At first they kinda looked like poop tarts but then the waiter there said they were more like pop tarts, but for wealthy people instead of trailer trash."

"That was classist of him," Kurt frowned as Noah agreed, "Yeah, I think he needs a pop tart. Or one of these squidgy dessert dumpling thingies they also had that kinda had me thinkin was this silicone stuff my mom's friend is always talking about when she feels her boobs."

Kurt moaned. "Oh, I could do with a pop tart. I could do with just sugar, you know. I haven't had anything since brunch and I'm starving. All I'm running on is an empty stomach and the will to munch. To nom on something."

"You could eat my face," Noah suggested as Kurt looked at him, quizzically, "Pardon me?"

The boy shrugged. "You know, just nibble on it if you put your lips on mine, cause I heard that moving your mouth on a surface tricks your body into thinking you're eating and the hunger will cease. Wanna give it a go?"

Kurt shook his head. "As selfless as that is Noah, I'll pass, but thank you."

"It's not selfless, dude. I'm hungry too."

"Okay we really need some food. Where are you eating dinner tonight?"

"At the ENO Pizzeria," Noah replied, pointing over to the hotel. "We've stopped goin to the Sheerwater cause a waiter there doesn't like me."

Kurt frowned. "Really?"

"Yeah," the boy nodded. "I told him to look in my eyes as I asked him if he'd spat in my food, cause if he had, I was about to spit on his whole life."

"Why would you ask him that?" Kurt gaped.

"Cause the dude looked dodgy, bro," Noah replied. "I saw him sneeze on someone's ice cream and try and pass it off as spritzy "magic water"."

"Really, Noah," Kurt asked, sighing.

"Believe me, Kurt," Noah insisted, "He gave this couple fish so charred they were farting soot by dessert."

"That's more the cook's fault, don't you think?"

"Yeah, and he still went and served it. What a donk dode. Seriously."

Kurt smiled. "Well, I'll be sure to tell my parents, but we've never had a problem there."

"Hey, why don't you just have dinner with us, dude?" Noah suddenly asked.

"Well, I-"

"Come on, It's the pizzeria and you know what that means…"

"Tacos?"

Noah shook his head. "No dude, pizza."

"Yes, but Noah," Kurt began, "your dad will have made a reservation only for you two."

"We can always expand it, right? Come on Kurt, come eat pizza with me. Pizza's awesome. Pizza's cool. Give me pizza and I'll do anything for you except share my pizza… except with you," grinned Noah as Kurt giggled. "You said your mom likes pizza, right? Plus, I can try and do that tummy eatin pizza thing for you. I know you wanna see it. I know you wanna."

Indeed, Kurt was intrigued, but he'd wait to tug on his mother's arm until the end of the tour, Thomas leading them past the Beach Village cottages and villas along the many scarlet pathways of the Vista Walk to the outdoor snack bars of the Sun Deck Grill and Sunset Bar, the main swimming pool with its many big cabanas and throwing the grand doors open wide as into the hotel they'd enter to view the spa and salon that offered massage therapy, body treatments and facials, the unique stores of which there were as many as fifteen, the elegant fairytale ballroom, the Windsor complex, the Garden room and the Carousel and Hanover Rooms, many of which had grown popular for business meetings, birthday celebrations and luxurious weddings.

Noah, who'd seen already the sprawling innards of the hotel as if he'd exhausted it upon his first glance, knew of its trivia; the hotel the filming location for a number of movies, the most famous of which that of the comedy "Some Like It Hot" with Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe he'd originally thought had been about chili. He knew the story of Kate Morgan, a woman who'd died in 1892 from a gunshot wound to the head on the exterior beach staircase of the hotel though with mere putative sightings of her "ghost", he dismissed them as paranormal rubbish. He knew of the hotel's Hollywood playground popularity in the twenties also. Its use as a "wartime casualty station" in World War II. Thanks to his father, he knew it all.

Yet what he wished to know was where Kurt's room was, the boy himself telling him he was staying in the Victorian building, Room 2036 that was not a long walk along the hall from the staircase and elevator as Kurt would now show him, both of them having parted from their parents to meet them back in the foyer in ten minutes. Noah would memorize the number, _2036, 2036, 2036, 2036._ He then would show Kurt where he himself was staying with his father, also in the Victorian building, but a room overlooking the ocean, Room 2145, at the end of the hall. And Kurt too would memorize the number and long hallway, though much more subtly that Noah had, the boy having mumbled to himself as if an actor reciting his lines under his breath.

Soon this voice would rise into a droning pester, as like a buzzing bee about your ear you'd wave your hand agitatedly to rid, for descending the flights of stairs back to the reception, Noah would tell Kurt to ask his parents to have pizza with him and his father, to "ask em," "ask em, dude", "ask em," asking Thomas now, and loudly enough for all of them to hear, "Please dad, can the Hummel crew have pizza fun times with us? Please?" Elizabeth would smile at the helpless expression on her son's fair face, the boy mouthing, "I'm sorry". And she laughed. She was aware of how children were, making plans on their own, amazing plans! Extraordinary! And having so much pride in them as if they'd thought them through to the very last detail.

"Pizza sounds divine, Noah. Thank you so," the woman smiled, now curtsying dramatically, yet with a loss of balance she whipped back up, shocked, "Ooh! Too much." Her hands shooting to her cleavage for there in that moment it had felt her breasts had just been about to spill out from her top. Not a sight for a young boy! Though a sight Noah had seen none the less. His father to. Those pendulous pale breasts Thomas found did not look painful and aching like his Connie's when she'd breastfeed Sarah, and far from flat when compared to that silicon obsessed friend of hers, but predominant and beautiful in that light top she was to change out of on returning to their suite, Burt and Kurt now waving as they stifled their laughter.

The ENO Artisan Pizzeria & Wine Bar was located at the west of the hotel, the wine bar itself showcasing its 2,800-bottle inventory glass-ensconced, floor-to-ceiling wine tower inside, whilst outside at the fire pit, gourmet wood-fired pizzas of Margherita, Funghi, and Pepperoni, amongst others, were served to diners as at a nearby table seating five, the Hummel's joined their new friends the Puckerman's for dinner, smiles all round, talking. For in conversation they were interwoven, the adults sat closely to one another as if what they spoke of was for their hearing only, or seemed to be. It did not perturb the two boys sat the other end, the mouth of the first knitted to the other's ear as if to lick it. As if to stick his tongue in and lick.

"And then I'd say…" Noah began, whispering as Kurt blinked. "You'd say that? To a person holding a gun to you?"

Noah grinned. "Totally. "Hit me with your best shot", and that's how my life will end."

"What a way to go."

"And I wouldn't want my funeral to be quiet and respectful either. When I die I want my ashes mixed with surfboard soot and packed tightly in a coffin that will blow up with TNT so that it will rain on all the guests as Queen's 'Another One Bites the Dust' rocks on the speakers."

"Well all that noise would definitely be able to cover up my trying to casually open a bag of chips quietly in the middle of your eulogy," Kurt shrugged. "Dearly beloved, Noah would have wished you all to remember him as rad. And that this funeral was tubular, and that he'll laugh at your small wiener in the shower when you don't know it."

"Totally," Noah laughed, watching as Kurt continued, "I hope you wouldn't spy on me without me knowing, would you?"

"Why? So I don't look at your bottom?"

"Why would you look there anyway?" Kurt asked, shifting in his seat as Noah held up his hands in mock surrender.

"Hey, I'm dead here, dude. Give me a break. Besides… you know, it's cute."

The fair boy blushed, laughing nervously. "Can a bottom be cute?"

"Anything can be cute, dude," Noah nodded. "A shower that has the water pressure of someone softly crying on you. The fact that they sell family sized Oreo boxes thinking people are gonna share them with their family, I mean, come on."

"I would share mine," Kurt replied, earnestly. "I would let them have as much as they'd want."

Noah grinned. "You must be a hit at Midnight Feasts."

Kurt lowered his eyes, smiling in embarrassment for he knew what he was about to say next would elicit a react of surprise. "I've never had one."

Noah blinked. "You've never…" He now eyed Kurt widely, "Have you been to slumber parties?"

Kurt nodded, smiling weakly. "I've had sleepovers, but we've not been allowed to talk after lights out."

"Really?" Noah asked, his brows lifting as if appalled as Kurd replied, "Yes, my friend Tina has parents who are strict. I don't know whether it's because they're Chinese or because they're not keen on the whole thing, but Tina has to earn herself the right to invite me over and by sleepover, it's a strong accent on the word sleep."

Noah let out a breath he hadn't even known he'd been holding, saddened this is all Kurt seemed to know. Eight, and he'd never had a slumber party. "That's rough, Kurt."

"It's okay," the fair boy assured, neatening his cutlery with a finger stroking down its metal sides. "I'll invite her over to mine most of the time and we'll prop the covers of my bed up like a tent and talk to each other about anything from my hatred of accidentally tying one shoe tighter than the other and having to redo my entire life, to Tina's who doesn't believe in Colgate Whitening Toothpaste because it guaranteed her whiteness in fourteen days, and fifteen days later, she was still Asian."

"Huh, so you do actually have fun… just talking," Noah said as Kurt offered him a gentle smile.

"If you're in good company, Noah you're able to have fun any which way. How are your slumber parties? Apart from you saying "ass butter" when everyone's asleep."

Noah grinned, nodding enthusiastically. "They're way fun, dude. Video Games, Movies. Playin Snuggle Pirate to demoralize each other. And in the morning, rise and shine? Pfft. More like rise and dine. Where's breakfast?"

"Actually, when are those pizza's com-oh, here they are," Kurt smiled as three piping hot pizzas were placed on their table in flavors of Pesto, Goat Cheese, and Margherita, the latter already cut in slices for the boys for which they were very grateful.

"Yum," Noah moaned, now licking his lips as he took a slice, greedy and quick, "I'm telling ya, being a pizza delivery driver would be great because no one would be disappointed to see you."

Kurt smiled. "Do you have pizza at your Midnight Feasts?"

"Sometimes, but it's mostly candy and potato chips," Noah replied, "I got a stash in my room, even though my mom doesn't like me eating in there because I've got so many carpet crumbs she says it's amazing they haven't yet turned into penicillin molds."

Kurt giggled, taking his own slice of pizza. "What does your room look like?" "

It's awesome," Noah grinned, biting into his pizza slice. "I got a cool California surfer theme goin on everywhere. The walls, the bed, the furniture. Everything, dude."

"Mine's all pale and simple. It's like a little hideaway with hanging lantern lights on my walls and loads of comforters on my bed," Kurt replied, "My mom will always leave me a big jar of smoothie on my dresser too when I come home from school."

Noah grinned. "Your mom's awesome, Kurt."

"She is," Kurt smiled. "You know, she redid our house four years ago. Mirror, mirror on the wall. Sofa, sofa over there. Desk, desk in that corner. She was so glad to be getting the home renovated."

"Does she work?" Noah asked as Kurt put down his pizza slice.

"She used to work for Laura Ashley. She's always been artistic, like me."

Noah raised his brow, interested. "Yeah?"

"Yes," Kurt nodded, "I'm going to open my own artsy shop one day where you'll be able buy lots of my signature homemade crafts. My bestseller will be this pencil that I'll glue googly eyes on. It'll be worth two hundred dollars."

Noah laughed hard, spilling a heavy splodge of tomato sauce on his shorts, now cursing, "Dang."

"Don't move, I'll do it," Kurt insisted, taking hold of Noah's napkin and dabbing at the stain, excess now blotted away to reveal an angry looking stain in its wake. "It'll stain if we don't deal with it now."

Noah's brightened with an idea. "What if I suck it out like they do with snake bites to rid the body of the poison?"

"You can't bend that far forward, can you?" Kurt replied, eyeing him reproachfully. "And you're not removing your clothes in public-"

"Oops!" Noah exclaimed, "How did that happen?"

"What did you-" Kurt paused, looking down in Noah's lap to find the boy's shorts dropped to his ankles, tanned thighs bare with plain blue briefs on show. He sighed with a rolling of his eyes, "Oh Lord."

"Mmm, breezy," hummed Noah happily as he returned to his pizza, opening and closing his legs, "This could start being a regular thing."

Kurt couldn't help but smile. "What a privilege for me."

Noah eyed him, now narrowing his eyes playfully, "Are you pulling that sarcastic stuff on me again, dude?"

"Yes," Kurt replied, smiling, "And If I'm extra sarcastic it means I'm either flirting with you or you really irritate me and I can't handle your crap. Have fun figuring out which."

Noah smirked, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. "Oh I'm gonna, Kurt. And I bet you're flirtin." He winked. "You think I won't catch on. That I can't and won't assume you like me? That I need you to blatantly tell me you do? That-"

"I'm not flirting with you, Noah," Kurt laughed as Noah pounded on the table. "Flirt with me!"

"No," replied Kurt, shaking his head still laughing as Noah seethed, his fists balled on the table top.

"Flirt. With. Me."

"No, I won't."

"Fine," Noah huffed, taking another slice of pizza and holding it to his cheek. "I'll have the pizza instead." Looking at it, he whispered, seductively, "Hey there, baby. How about we take this to the bedroom? What's that? You want to bring along your friends, the chicken dippers? That's fine by me." Kurt laughed once more, watching on as his friend devoured his slice.

The eyes of the fellow diners would be drawn to their table. Oh, such a gentlemanly act is was for that tan boy to offer the last slice of pizza to his friend, the boy only have eaten two. And then to eye with amusement the tan boy's cargo short's slipping beyond his swinging ankles as he was soon reprimanded by his father to pull them back up immediately. This man, who they'd seen cast frequent aroused glances at the bosom of the strawberry blonde next to him, who was not displaying her breasts in a conspicuous way, wearing a floral silk halter top that plunged at her neckline but who now refilled her glass with wine as her husband eyed her with an expression of deepest pride, leaning his elbows on the table as he casually tapped his thick fingers.

For dessert, chocolate truffles were served, Sea Salt Caramel, Lavender, Mocha, Peanut Toffee, and again outside eyes would see the frizzling crackle of electricity, this energy that pulsated through them, had them eating, and had them laughing. Those boys again, stealing the limelight. The youth that was luminescent on their vibrant faces. And the way that tan surfer boy was beaming at his friend. Liking him. Liking him. Liking him lots! Popping these chocolates into their mouths before they were all gone, and so fast too! The first boy having almost choked, but nope. False alert. It was a game they were playing. Like earlier when that same boy had had his stomach eat a slice of pizza. Absolutely disgraceful behavior. But they were just having fun.

_I was pretty much a punkish clown. I just wanted to make Kurt laugh with me, the dude himself keeping me on my toes with his sarcasm that meant one thing or the other, but I liked to think it was flirting. Hell yeah! Flirting! I'd pucker up to him and he'd giggle it off until only after we'd left the restaurant for our rooms did he wave at me playfully, blowing me an exaggerated kiss, a giant "mwah!" made right at me as he winked my way and turned, running to join his parents. And I laughed. It was funny! It was really funny! As if it had great comedic timing to it. Like that Sugar Kane chick. The supreme female impersonator. Spot on! That had the feeling of a cola can freshly opened in my chest, fizzing in my veins and down under. Suddenly, I was hungry._

* * *

**~ PLEASE REVIEW ~**

(But if you wish to criticize, may it be constructive. I'm not going to learn from my mistakes and improve if you vent.)

**Disclaimer:** I do not own the rights to the characters from Glee as I don't own the show. I'm not earning money from this and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.  
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~ STAY TUNED FOR MORE BY FOLLOWING/FAVORITING ~**


	3. Tarzan and Gay Jane

_**THE CHILD**_  
_2001_

_**III**_

**~ Tarzan & Gay Jane ~**

It was bed time, nine o'clock, the sounds of teeth being brushed, the reflection of a child staring into the glass as he went in deep with his bright blue toothbrush, and careful not to brush too hard so as to not bleed his gums, careful to spit so as to avoid coughing violently, the mirror stained. Kurt, standing in only his pajama top and underwear, brushed with distracted attention, dug deep in contemplation he didn't notice his toothpaste coated lips, or even analyze the angles of his face from both head on and sidelong views he so often did when preparing for bed. Perhaps the ache in one of his back teeth from brushing it continuously for a minute or two should have stung enough to have him stop, but the pain was not registered.

The artisan cheese from the Margherita, the crust, the truffle chocolates that had been exotic confections he could still taste on his tongue. He thought of that evening's dinner, of their hotel tour. Brunch. Of Noah. He considered his relationship to the boy. A mere irritating acquaintance two days ago. Then to have begun addressing him by his actual name. Noah. "Noah". It did something to Kurt, the grip on his toothbrush either tightening or loosening, he was not sure. The sense of internalized terror with a relishing spark that this Dallas boy had very much befriended him, using that crude humor of his to have Kurt's laughter out into the air, and to claim it somehow as his own, that sonic sound his own grand trophy to keep for himself.

The water rinsed his mouth out thoroughly, the mouthwash he then succeeded it with only burned it afterwards, yet it was not registered like it should have been with little hands to his cheeks, a grimace. In thought, he condemned Noah's actions as pointless and fruitless. There was no point making friends on holidays for the end only culminated in both parties going their own separate ways. Yet the idea of a summer friendship to a boy like Noah was appealing. A popular boy within school and many sport fixtures, a wide social circle kept close by the gravitational pull of its center, Noah himself, and happy he was with these friends he had, most of them boys, with a few girls, could get along nicely with both sexes. _And then there was me. _

Would there be any more unscheduled run in's? Or scheduled? It was fun to pop out and be spontaneous. It was exciting! Noah, the Dallas boy adventurer, a little boy Theseus conquering the hotel's "What to do?" challenges in only days, waxing his own board for riding those Californian waves that rolled tiredly for the commanding surfer he was, exhausting them until he'd flatten them all from beneath his feet. He would make his own fun if need be, make it happen for himself, with his sights now on a boy who would only be out of reach. Early breakfasts, late dinners, the boy would hardly be about on the grounds of the hotel, on its long beach, there would be no sighting of his fair skin, and those eyes. Where would they be? Where was Kurt?

Burt had said their days were not to be spent solely in the hotel but mostly sightseeing the rest of the county, to go exploring! The mention of a trip down to San Deigo, to SeaWorld, to Legoland. To visit the Westfield Horton Plaza, the Natural History Museum at Balboa Park, and to take a ride on the Africa Tram through the free-range enclosures at the Wild Adventure Park in San Pasqual Valley, Cape buffalos, Southern white rhinoceroses, Ugandan giraffes, oh the sights! Each tourism leaflet taken from the hotel lobby lay neatly strewn on the table, and like bedtime story books with their vivid pictures, the "posed" smiles of those children, it excited Kurt as he sat now in bed, the sudden knock on the door alerting his blue eyes sharply, nervous.

The laughter of his parents, he could hear it raucous and silly in the bathroom. He could feel his shivering anticipation, even more so when he was too short to reach the peephole in the door, his body mere inches from the knocking, and it was quiet knocking, timid, that had his hand on the doorknob, the golden light of the hallway soon streaming in on his now wincing eyes as he peeped around to find Noah standing there before him, smiling so slowly it was if the very action of stretching the lips made too much noise, adjusting the loose blanket he'd wrapped himself in as he did, pajamas underneath, those shuffling flip flopped feet with the crackle of a grocery bag in his hand freezing that smile in place, but a smile of excitement, pumped.

"Hey," greeted Noah, voice low but happy in tone, to which Kurt replied, whispering, "What are you doing here?"

He leaned his head out the door frame to examine the virtually deserted corridor, yet only a couple at the end fully attired in evening wear glanced fleetingly their way as they disappeared into their room, Noah now answering as Kurt straightened up, still rather heightened. "I came to see if you wanna hang out?" Raising the grocery bag, he smiled." "I have our Midnight Feast."

"We just had food, Noah. Dinner was two hours ago," Kurt replied as Noah shrugged simply, asking, "So?"

"We had pizza."

"Dude, those pizza's were nothing. Like take one big bite and finish the thing nothing. They serve em way bigger in Dallas."

Kurt sighed. "It's probably become they ordered the children's size for us, Noah."

"They did?" Noah blinked, narrowing his eyes. "My dad's gonna get it now."

"Yeah, you do that. Goodnight."

"No wait, come eat food with me Kurt, come hang out."

"Noah, I really can't. It's my bed time," replied Kurt distractedly with an air of unpredictability as a candle flame flickering in agitated air, looking behind him as Noah scoffed, "Dude, you're on vacation, there is no 'bed time'. You just go to bed whenever you want."

Kurt had positioned his body so that most of it hid behind the door, but Noah could see pajamas on his upper half, whilst the bottom remained concealed, possibly bare as the fair boy answered, "Well I want to go to bed now."

"No, your parents want you to go to bed now so they could watch Cinemax," replied Noah, as Kurt asked, eyes narrowed.

"Is that what your dad is watching right now? But instead of sending you to bed, he sent you here?"

Shaking his head, Noah replied. "Nah, I came here all by self. He doesn't even give me a bed time 'cause he knows I'd go way past it, but my mom, she'll tell me to go to bed when I'm already in bed, and I'll be like, "I'm always in bed. You go to bed. Stop talking to me"."

"Well, bed is where I want to be right about now. I'm tired. See these eyelids, they're already closing. See my hair? Deflated," replied Kurt, his fingers pointing lastly to his hair, that chestnut hair still poised and coiffed into the position it had been set in this morning, the work of the blow dryer perhaps, the work of a wet comb, hair gel even, yet with strands now loose around his hair line, sticking out of place at the top. It had Kurt looking more like an actual kid rather than someone's Ken doll.

"That's why I brought a taste of sugar central with me," replied Noah triumphantly, lifting the bag up once again to rummage excitedly through its contents, though having to hunch his shoulders slightly to prevent his blanket from slipping to the ground. "I have marshmallows, jelly beans, red vines, chocolate kisses, cookie dough, peanut butter and I wanted to bring along those sticks that have sugar on one side with the other side you dip in chocolate, but they didn't have any at the store."

"Like you're not going to be slowly rotting your insides anyway. You're not going to be able to live after eating all that," replied Kurt disapprovingly, the grocery bag transparent enough to catch the blurred outlines of all that lay inside.

"Totally, we're gonna be so sick. Come on, grab your blanket and we'll go," urged Noah, readjusting his own as he motioned Kurt out, yet Kurt resisted, "I told you, I can't. Plus, I've already brushed my teeth and I really don't want to have to brush them again."

"Kurt, come on, you can't leave me to eat all this. We're a team; we gotta crunch down hard on this candy," pleaded Noah ardently as if he a were general failing to rally enough fighting men for the battle or now even a sumo wrestler thumping his feet before the fight as he clenched his fists in determination, those little muscles flexed at the arm, yet Kurt frowned.

"You told me earlier you once shouted at a friend on Halloween saying, "There's no "we" in food! Get the hell away from me!""

"And look how much I've grown since then," replied Noah smiling grandly with arms spread wide like a martyr speaking before his people, his blanket falling from his shoulders and dropping to pool around his feet, now laughing as with Kurt's shocked gasp upon the sight of no pajamas, just mere underwear clothing his otherwise naked body, he continued in all his stand-up bravado. "I shared my pancakes and pizza with you today and I'm now here up for sharing my candy fashizzle. Growth."

Kurt was so embarrassed; he could have slammed the door, and hard, with his cheeks so well kissed a rosy shade, it was if they'd been pinched repeatedly with every capillary burst and left to bleed profusely. Yet the image of Noah sitting defeated outside his door braving that bag by himself with a churning stomach, a night long gurgled cacophony of retching noises from a cookie dough smeared mouth, fingers stained with peanut butter, had him fetching his own blanket, folded and unused at the foot of his bed as the nights were too warm and occasionally too humid for extra layers, hurrying out with a quick word knocked on the bathroom door, a fleeting "staying at Noah's" as he ran, a goodbye to his parent's still echoing laughter.

The two boys, with their blankets billowing as like two princes hurrying through the halls of their own castle, were seen by a number of the guests, catching sight of the first of the two leading the way in only his underwear flashing from beneath his blanket, a swishing plastic bag in hand, with his fair companion behind him, his face almost contorted into exhilarated panic, unfastened sandals slowing in the wake of a hurry, hurry, hurry like pace not to get caught. The urgency, the emergency, so alert! It was the hotel's policy that guests remained fully clothed and presentable when in public, and to not run about either, perhaps a man's authoritative cry sounding after them, "excuse me young men! Will you..." Lost. The boys were already gone.

Kurt didn't know where they were going, he couldn't think, but he was a little boy and little boys weren't supposed to think hard, especially bonnie little blue eyed boys weren't supposed to worry, fret, calculate, still, he had a way of frowning like a midget adult, pondering such questions as: where was this strange boy taking him? Now arriving in the garden courtyard his suite balcony overlooked, why here? Rushing towards the pavilion where couples had exchanged vows on their wedding day, why here? And with the breeze cooling flushed skin, the moon illuminating that skin, shiny, gleaming as they collapsed to the floor panting, Kurt would not ask 'why here?' to the boy beside him, for none of this had to have him thinking hard anyway.

"Here," offered Noah once they'd settled down cross legged amongst their blankets against the wall of the pavilion, the freshly opened Kraft Jet Puffed Jumbo mallows now thrust unceremoniously into Kurt's face as the boy shook his head with a hand pathetically waving it away.

"That's okay, I don't want any." Yet the bag shook in gesture, rolling the marshmallows nearer the harshly torn opening like an awakening avalanche set to fall, Kurt on verge to protest again, "No, I really don't-"

"Are we gonna do this again? It's our Midnight Feast and we're happy," Noah replied, his words slightly muffled from a near full mouth of Jelly Beans that had Kurt accepting a single marshmallow from the crackling bag, nibbling on it, chewing on its spongy surface and smiling as he swallowed.

"Eating marshmallows always reminds me of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in Ghostbusters, you know? Marshmallow Fluff too, especially when he explodes and turns into molten marshmallow cream."

"Totally, but that tubby soft-squeeze was like the worst monster ever," replied Noah, furiously working his tongue around his mouth as he removed stray pieces of Jelly Bean still glued to his teeth, soon picking at them with his finger, his mouth as wide open as it could go as if he were in the middle of a dentist appointment.

Looking on with a disapproving grimace Kurt asked, "Who do you think is?"

Noah replied instantly, finger out of mouth. "Hands down Godzilla, dude!" Kurt was not surprised.

"Ask me who last year, I would have totally gone with my bro T-Rex from Jurassic Park 'cause you know, T-Rex! But after you see Godzilla, there is no going back," continued Noah enthusiastically, now wiping his damp finger coarsely on his blanket. "Seriously, that movie was so awesome! Matthew Broderick plays like this Doctor dude who teams up with the army to kill Godzilla who's totally goin' around sinkin' ships, smashin' up Manhattan and pooping out baby Godzilla's. You should see it."

"Didn't people say that movie was really bad?" Remarked Kurt, shyly feeding himself to another marshmallow as Noah dismissed his comment somewhat huffily.

"People think too much. You don't go to see Godzilla to think, 'cause otherwise the movie's a total brain dead bust. You go to see Godzilla to have your eyeballs frickin' explode. I saw it with my dad at home. I was like, "Whoa!" and Godzilla's like, "Roar!" and I was like, "Whoa dude, nice teeth!" Why, what kind of movies are you into?"

"Disney. I love Disney. I've seen every movie of theirs since Snow White and the Seven Dwarves," smiled Kurt as Noah in response, merely shrugged as he chewed nosily on a red vine.

"Meh. Disney's alright. Get the animators to start drawing in mutant iguanas crushing rich privileged girls and I'll tune in more."

Yet Kurt ignored him as he continued, now remembering, "When I was six, my parents took me to see Tarzan, and they bought me the soundtrack. I wouldn't stop asking them for it."

"Oh yeah, I saw that too. I wanna get all crazy ripped like him and kill mental ass leopards and have my body covered in battle scars. You know, to get badges of honour the organic natural way and stuff," replied Noah, stroking the inside of his arm as Kurt argued, "I think organic is to do with food and growth."

Noah shrugged loftly, now resuming his eating. "Whatever; our body grows some weird stuff. Like our hair. Hair is so weird. Like your body is like 'let's push all this protein out the head.'"

"Well you'd need a lot of it to be Tarzan," smiled Kurt, looking over Noah's hair, spiky trimmed and considerably shorter than his own, black in color or perhaps it was merely off black from a distance, up close the deepest brown he'd ever seen, yet in such low lighting it was difficult to determine as Noah ran a hand through it, almost ruffling it as you would a dog's fur coat, now laughing, "yeah, I'd rock his man locks like a total rock star."

Asking with curiosity, Kurt cocked his head. "You like rock?"

"Yep. I got it from my dad. He knows all about rock tunes, got vinyls and cassette tapes everywhere in his study at home," nodded Noah. "He also makes me listen to a lot of cool indie bands, like really indie bands you'll have never heard of. Bands so indie they don't even record together. You have to buy five separate albums and listen to them all at the same time."

The boy chortled with a hand diving nosily into the marshmallow bag as Kurt merely frowned, now asking. "What bands are these?"

"I dunno if they have a name," replied Noah with a full mouth. "I think having one is too 'mainstream' for them, but my dad now thinks they're too 'mainstream' anyway so he's totally now rocking to seventies Japanese wave stuff or something. I dunno. He's definitely all about signing people no one's heard of under his label. It's the way he rolls at his record."

Nodding in thought, Kurt lowered his eyes only to have them now rise upon Noah's question. "What about you? What do you like?"

"Um… Disney again. What can I say, I love their songs," shrugged Kurt to Noah's drawn brows, asking, "Is that all you listen to? Musical theater stuff? Damn, you need your ears tuned to the right station."

As the boy returned to eating, Kurt looked on with mocking, still smiling eyes. "What? Anything under Puckerman Records? Doing some unashamed family business promotion here are we?"

Shaking his head, Noah answered. "No, you just get some educatin' in the classics is all I'm sayin'."

"Disney has plenty of classics," replied Kurt defensively, chin raised upon a straightened well postured body. "'Some Day My Prince Will Come,' 'A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes', 'Once Upon A Dream.' They're songs my mom grew up listening to too, although the films gave her such unrealistic expectations of hair and how if you stroll into the woods and spontaneously burst into song animals aren't going to help wash your clothes in the river and you let you crash in their tree for the night."

"Okay, stick around in my room tomorrow and I'll play you some stuff," offered Noah, sucking his sticky fingers clean and wiping them on his blanket.

Yet Kurt hesitated, replying, "I don't know. Doesn't rock music make you do bad things because it has a lot of swears in it?"

Shrugging, Noah answered. "Maybe, but I've always been like this, a cool ass dude with a huge dong, and if you want, you can bring along your Tarzan soundtrack. That Phil Collins guy I can handle, but the other stuff, no."

"Oh, I'm not here tomorrow. My dad's taking us again to San Diego for the day," replied Kurt, voice disheartened and stilling Noah's reach for the chocolate kisses, his hand wavering, only to retract, those fingers curling as the boy asked, "When you comin' back?"

It was casually asked, an underline of slight disappointment hinted in his voice with Kurt wishing not to deepen it, sorry for offering no more than a mere shake of the head as he answered vaguely. "I don't know. Dinner time I suppose."

"After dinner then?" Asked Noah, a hopeful suggestion, yet Kurt remained irresolute. Like a child, he was afraid of disobeying authority. "It'll have been a long day and my mom will want me to have an early bedtime."

Mockingly, Noah asked, "What is it with you and bed times? You're gonna wake up way before ten, and if you're doin' that on your own free will, I don't trust you. Why do you need those extra hours? To scheme on me? Eat my food while I sleep? Steal my money? Uh uh, nope."

"Steal your money? I'd lick your money so that if I'm charged with robbery, the money would be mine. I'd be a sneaky criminal like that," smiled Kurt cutely, having sensed the aggravation in Noah's earlier response and willing it away to which the other boy replied, now with encouraging fervor, "If I was a criminal I would do all my crimes on a scooter so the police would only see one footprint every few meters and they'd look for a one-legged man with powerful jumping muscles instead of me."

"Don't you need powerful muscles for surfing anyway?" Asked Kurt.

"Sure," nodded Noah, gesturing to various parts of his body with a palm full of chocolate kisses, candy that slipped out occasionally as he explained. "Your legs are like the power houses that get you up to your feet fast and help you carve your turns or hang ten on the nose, but powerful muscles all over are good too. The chest, your upper back and shoulders, everything has to work in unison to keep you on the board always."

"I wish I was good at sports," mumbled Kurt, in a way that had Noah slowing his eating yet again. That fair face to the ground, eyes with it and those hands, those perfectly shaped fingers that appeared to grab his blanket, for comfort perhaps, support something to hold. It had Noah replying, shrugging softly, "It's no biggie. It's not for every-"

"Sike! I'm so good at sports" interrupted Kurt with a shout, such burst of laughter at Noah's look of taken aback surprise, the boy spluttering out, "Really?"

"No, I hate sports, but I can dance," smiled Kurt, traces of laughter still in the voice as he settled once more.

"You can?" Asked Noah with a belief that this statement was in fact the truth, now smiling wide as Kurt answered, "Yeah, I'm learning Ballet because one of the teacher's in my school thought I had 'good coordination' when I ran down the hall once. She didn't see the part where I tripped and fell at the end, but yeah. Lots of pointing your toes, and trying to jump like birds too fat to take off."

"Oh we are so gonna dance tomorrow, but none of that Ballet stuff. We've gotta really get down and boogie, you know, bust those moves, work those muscles," replied Noah, grooving his lower body with lips pouted slightly as Kurt had seen in Kidtopia, yet he frowned, arguing resolutely, "Ballet dancers need just as much muscle as surfers, more so for men because they have to lift."

Halting his movements, Noah looked at him, smirking. "Oh I get it now. You just wanna see girl panties."

"W-what? No!" Exclaimed Kurt, both voice and face aghast as Noah teased on, "You wanna lift a girl with your arm muscles and see their girly dinky doos."

Shaking his head profusely, Kurt clamored again, "No I don't!"

Noah smiled. "Dude, I'm telling ya, stay away. Chick's crotches are dangerous. It's where tentacle monsters keep their life forces. And where they also hide small guns and throwing stars and all in a poop like hole they deceptively call the 'Flower' that apparently poops some kind of-"

"Will you stop!" Ordered Kurt, his pinkening ears near to being deafened with clamping palms to Noah's ribbing laughter.

"Why? Did I ruin the surprise for you? Am I seeing poop too much? Is it totally ruining those marshmallows for you when I say poop? Should I stop saying poop? I think I should stop saying poop."

Kurt exclaiming, yet only feeding Noah's amusement. "Yes you should! I really don't want to think of lady parts right now. I don't even want to do any of the things you said."

"Oh I get it, you want to be the one lifted," grinned Noah, knocking his knee against Kurt's, the boy frowning.

"What? No I can't be lifted, I'm a boy. Only girls are."

Noah shrugged. "Yeah, so? You look pretty light to me. Why should chicks hog all the flying time? You need to talk to the head of Ballet or something and be like, "Hey, Mrs. Grand Supreme Ballet chick. I want to be thrown in the air by some dude. Make it happen 'cause I am not happy down here on the ground." Problem solved."

"Problem not solved. No 'dude' is going to want to pick me up. It would look... odd," replied Kurt, an air of dismissal in his words, just the mere idea, looking out across the garden courtyard with a face blank, expressionless to hazel eyes that had Noah quick to respond, as if up the for a challenge set for a young warrior, "I'll be your dude. I'm totally strong enough."

Kurt was quick to laugh, more a taunting scoff as he spoke. "No you're not, Noah. Your arms aren't that much bigger than mine."

"I have Puckerman Power juice pumpin' through my veins, that's all I need," boasted Noah, extending his arms out in front of him, tracing his fingers down faint blue veins, raised into a flex as Kurt asked mockingly, smiling, "What is that, a new protein shake or something?"

Arms still suspended in the air, Noah eyed them with profound pride, as if he had such high hopes for them. "Make fun, but these arms, they will grow, and baby, you'll be the highest one in the air when I'm finished with you."

"Yeah, you'll lift me up, drop me and I'll fall and break a bone or something, and I've never broken a bone which is just suspicious to me. I probably don't have any bones," replied Kurt as he looked over himself, just a little body for the eyes to travel over, not a vast journey, hardly anything of him with bones perhaps as delicate as a china doll's tea cup.

Yet Noah smirked away. "Even easier, you'll be all floppy and as light as an egg roll."

Bluntly, Kurt replied, "You can't lift me, Noah."

"Fine Ballet boy, let's try it out now," began Noah, leafing off his blanket and getting ready to stand, yet Kurt's hand was quick to stop him by the arm, the boy insisting with panic, panic laced in amusement, "No, no, I'm eating, I'll throw up."

Eventually settling back down again, Noah grabbed the Jelly Beans with a finger pointed at him, unwavering instance, steady as a rock, but said with a smile. "Fine, but I'm lifting you tomorrow. With Phil Collins on my side, I have the strength of Tarzan in me."

"I don't know, I think I'll be too tired after-" began Kurt warily, his eyes shooting a glance over to his family's suite balcony but interrupted by Noah's whine, one a child might sound when a parent would not buy them a toy they wanted.

"Dude, come on. You can't crap on the excitement. It's like when people say, "Hey! I got a new computer!" "That's nice, but mine's better" or "Hey! I finally killed that guy who's been bugging me for weeks!" "What the hell, I'm calling the police." Unbelievable."

"Fine, I'll try to come by after dinner," relented Kurt, watching as Noah munched out a distorted "sweet" from a full mouthful of Jelly Beans as he continued, "but I can't make any promises. I'll just have to try to eat something that'll give me loads of energy instead of… this."

He gestured unfavorably to the candy, the floor strewn in wrappers as Noah now asked, "Would you believe me if I said the only reason why I gave you one was to watch how you nibble like a hamster when you eat?"

"I do?" Asked Kurt surprised as he looked down to the half-eaten piece of marshmallow still lying in his palm, the bite mark the mark of a measly nibble, hardly a decent bite at all, Noah now smiling with a nod, "yeah, you remind me of the hamster we have in our classroom at school. He's kinda like this."

Kurt looked on as Noah comically demonstrated, Jelly Beans now brightly colored hamster pellets, tiny bites exaggerated, so small that had him replying. "Well that's it for this 'hamster'."

"No, eat it up. We've got a whole lotta candy still to get through," ordered Noah determinedly, now making for the peanut butter jar that had Kurt asking with a frown, "Do you even have anything to spread the peanut butter on?"

Removing the lid, Noah shuffled closer to Kurt, body turned, a much assured demonstration about to begin. "Sure, whatya gotta do is spread it all around your mouth and then lick it off, but if you don't get all of it, the other person has to lick off the rest for you."

"You better have a lizard tongue because I'm not licking off anything," replied Kurt grimacing as Noah finished applying the finishing touches, two fingers digging deep into the jar and wiping the remnants on the skin, as if face painting the symbols of a clan on the cheeks but with much less artistic precision as the boy smirked a peanut bearded smile, the look of a boy who'd just dunked the lower half of his face in the stuff, the look akin to that of a year's worth of foundation make up on the face.

"We'll see," smirked Noah as out came the tongue like an hungry animal darting from its cave, licking, furiously lapping up the peanut butter like a cat straining with fur caught on its hooked papillae with certain places hard to reach. The end of the chin, the tip of the nose, leaving skin damp from saliva, the tongue itself covered in unsightly brownish coating, but still Noah persisted, his face screwed up as Kurt looked on in growing anticipation, now finally crying out, "yay! You did it!" Success. Yet fingers dipped once again and a stripe was made so far out of reach on Noah's face, Kurt sighed.

"My tongue, it's going in for the reach, but oh no, it can't, it can't make it," said Noah, forcing his tongue at the peanut butter but failing to reach as Kurt narrowed his eyes.

"I see what you're doing. Your tongue looks like it doesn't even fit comfortably in your own mouth let alone out of it."

Retrieving his tongue, Noah eyed him with a smirk. "You're right. Maybe it would fit better in yours."

"Ew! Gross!" Grimaced Kurt as Noah lunged forward, pinning him to the ground.

"Lick it Kurt, lick the peanut butter!"

"No!"

"No as in yes?"

"No as in back off!"

"Don't make this harder Kurtie-poo. Lick it!" With Kurt squirming on the ground laughing, as if in the midst of being tickle tortured, writhed uncontrollably under Noah's looming peanut butter cheek, the heavy scent of the food paste picked up by his flared nostrils, the candy scent of Noah's breath all over him, this boy's body heavy on him.

So much excitement, the late hour creeping into the next and the next yet amongst the evening sea air, the waves, the sounds of children's echoing laughter coursed through the pavilion into the garden itself. It was spared the curse of exhaustion, kept alive in giggles as both boys eventually returned to the Puckerman's suite where Thomas Puckerman, a beer in hand, the knocking guilty (he could tell), opened the door to find his son and little friend before the threshold, hair matted in cookie dough like bubble-gum, faces resembling messes of badly applied muddy makeup, the remnants of peanut butter staining not only skin but pajamas and blankets with his son's tongue, quick like a gecko's, licking the side of his mouth to Kurt's laughter.

And like that! Sleepiness came quick! Guided through the Puckerman suite, a 'Junior Suite', smaller than the Hummel's yet still spacious with a gorgeous ocean view, a double bed shared between both father and son and a series of overstuffed arm chairs and couches which Kurt was invited by Mr. Puckerman to sleep on, yet not before having both boys scrub their faces clean, the pain of rinsing out the thick almost gooey cookie dough from their scalps, the harsh brush blows of the toothbrush. Noah had complained of his stomach, groaning it hurt. He was given pills only to fall asleep instantly whilst Kurt, tucked on the couch, was quiet, and sleeping soundlessly. Such a little thing had thought Mr. Puckerman, as the lights had gone out. So little.

The next day, San Diego! The morning having Mr. Puckerman escorting Kurt back to the Hummel suite, the fair boy having awakened immediately to scramble from the couch and alert as any animal primed for self-survival for it was off quick on the shuttle down to the city, a full day in the rich heat, strolling along the Reflection Pool at the Casa de Balboa, visiting the Serra Museum in Presidio Park with the Old Point Loma Lighthouse in the bay, and all the while willing his head not to loll on his shoulders as if wooden, for how that much tired he was from the sun, a mouth parched, perhaps dried, he thought, from the remnants of peanut butter he could still taste at the back of his tongue from the evening prior no matter how much he drank.

They would return late to a dinner once again at the Sheerwater, retiring early for the night, yet it was the Puckerman's suite door that opened to find their boy Kurt, flushed and smiling with his Tarzan soundtrack in hand, allowed only an hour's stay by his parents for intrusion was rude, to Noah's beaming face that welcomed him in. The boy had spent most of the day in the suite watching cartoons, having woken too late in the morning to wish Kurt a "bitchen" day and only stomaching a spoonful of cereal at breakfast, yet have given him enough energy to stroll around the Hotel on idle feet, making a wish of his own at the fountain and throwing the coin in, though he'd never admit it, like Kurt had. Oh, the blush that came when even thinking of it.

Now they were running around, bouncing on the bed as games were played, brought to light as quick as a match striking the box, the flame of fun that had Noah stealing his father's tie and tying it around his head, a Native American headband as he ran about, war whooping away! Now the carpet was scorching hot lava, the bed and chairs sinking islands with Kurt jumping from one to the other. The floor quick sand, bubbling acid, deadly tar pits he all nearly fell into on crumbling ledges! Noah the adventurer upon a wooden raft headed straight for a waterfall! Kurt steering a burning pirate ship upon a kraken infested sea, a whip like tentacle capsizing the hull with his cries for "help! Somebody please help me!" And help coming from… "Tarzan?"

"Yeah, Tarzan," smiled Noah down at Kurt's questioning face, the boy standing atop the bed with body poised heroically, fists on hips, chest presented as like a body builder would grandly show off to a judges' panel yet with the proud voice of a mere eight year old as he spoke. "You know at the start of the movie when his folks are escaping that burning ship, I'd get you on a lifeboat and row us to shore, and then we'd use the washed up wood to totally build an awesome tree house for us to live in."

"That's more his parent's story, not Tarzan's," replied Kurt, shaking his head. "The whole point of Tarzan is that he's an ape man raised by gorillas. If you want to be him, you're going to have to quickly make a pole from wood on the deck and pole vault us both onto shore. Come on, Noah. He wouldn't play it safe with a lifeboat. He's Tarzan."

Noah smirked at him, those hazel eyes now flickering like a candle's reflection in a glass orb as he pulled Kurt to his feet, nodding. "You're right. Hold on."

From one overstuffed chair to the next they jumped. _Jump! Jump! Jump!_ The jagged giant rocks in the shape of human skulls with no amount of erosion fading those skeletal features away their platforms, the same rocks the Kraken had slammed the ship into with Kurt scared he'd fall in and drown for how fast Noah was going, the boy's hand fiercely a hold of his own and never letting go, now using a piece of the ship's wood as a board to surf upon wrathful waves, nearing the already debris littered shore, but losing control and falling as the buoyancy of the board sank from under with only a combat roll as like from a moving vehicle did they end washed up on the sand, panting their little chests out, drenched with hands still in each other's.

It was just a bed with a strewn quilt, they were just chairs with their cushions near to falling off and this was just a hotel suite rooming childish make believe playtime, but it was good enough for the two boys as they lay beside each other staring up at the ceiling, having survived the vicious storm thanks to "Tarzan", golden brown Dallas surfer boy "Tarzan" who was now quick to jump to his feet, singing along to the final chorus of Phil Collin's 'Two Worlds', the song having played throughout their adventure, singing along to 'Strangers Like Me,' and to 'Son of Man' as if he'd conquered the world with Tarzan's distinctive, ululating yell on his lips, the victory cry of the bull ape ringing through the room as he ripped off his tee to beat at his chest.

Kurt was to look at Noah as if the boy was on a sugar rush, not safe to near in case he'd accidentally kick you in the face in the middle of a jump stunt, or scratch you across the cheek when play fighting, but Noah didn't hurt him. Noah was careful of that. Even for a eight year old he knew when to stop, for Noah was Tarzan. Courageous, loyal and steadfast Tarzan when they played, danced even when he tugged Kurt up eagerly to boogie down and hard to Phil Collins, playing some more, now into an African uncharted rainforest, and only pausing to burst into spontaneous singing. To hunt and kill Sabor. And victory! Noah attempting to lift Kurt in the air as Tarzan had done with Sabor's corpse, only to have Kurt squirm out of his arms, laughing.

Now raining in torrents, freshly saved from a pack of baboons with mandrill like faces and up against the trunk of a tree, or up against the headboard of the bed, Kurt, with a wagging finger ordered Tarzan to "stay back! Don't come any closer!" He pushed at Noah's bare chest with his own bare foot, giggled as the boy fingered five little toes and watched as Noah with his 'confused', yet 'intense', 'focused' hazel eyes neared him on all fours, body crouched like a gorilla's with weight supported on his knuckles, completely disrespecting personal boundaries, took hold of his fair hand and placed their palms together, fingers touching and eyes connected, wavering slightly, only to crease as both now suddenly burst into waves of hysterical laughter.

_We didn't know where it came from. The laughter that only sounded to me as if to diffuse an awkward moment, to diffuse embarrassment. It had been funny at first to see Noah as Tarzan, both of us reanacting the scenes from the movie. Yet this scene, Tarzan and Jane's first encounter, though comical, was not. Noah had always previously skipped 'You'll Be in My Heart' whenever it played. He said he didn't like love songs. That romance was "lame", yet I did not call him out on it when our palms were together, fearing he'd stop playing, even ask me to leave, but with the hour up and mom's knock at the door, I left anyway. I left Noah, the boy shaka signing me "chow dude". I left the African rainforests we'd made our own. I left "Tarzan"._

**.**

**Glee**

**.**

Down again to San Diego it was the next day and up into San Pasqual Valley, the sky overhead a fair fading blue, the air stirring with a warm dry wind and away from the smog-bound wicked city as the Hummel's visited the Wild Animal Park, an attraction Kurt could only view as coincidental after his time with Noah the previous evening. Spanning 1,800 acres, it was one of the largest tourist attractions in the San Diego County, boasting the world's largest veterinary hospital located within a semi-arid environment, cypresses, conifers and exotic foliage that at times seemed to swallow the many thatched and rustic wooden buildings that looked as if they'd been plucked right out of the fishing villages of the Congo or the movie set of Jurassic Park.

The shrieking sounds from beyond like kittens crushed, the roars almost bloodthirsty and growls amongst the laughter of children. For Kurt, viewing the many animals with a throat no longer raw from peanut butter, or from inhaling heavy smoke from a raging fire, those little sighs of wonderment would sound, perhaps a gasp upon smiling lips when he'd tug at either one of his parent's sleeves and point excitedly at one of the animals, often jogging Burt's arm in the middle of taking pictures, blurring them as if the colors had been doused in water. Other children would have been reprimanded, some even struck across their chubby faced cheeks, there to clutch in tears, but Kurt was left untouched, apologizing as Burt smiled forgivingly.

They progressively made their way from each enclosure to the next along serpentine paths, admiring the curving ivory tusks of the elephants, the lion's that reminded Kurt too heavily of Sabor's ferocious features to view comfortably from acacia trees, to the graceful lewd-neon pink plumaged flamingos of the Mombasa Lagoon's scenic watering hole, the pelicans, the storks with their long child bearing beaks, and the gorgeous iridescent green-and-blue peacocks strutting and shaking their heads in twitchy motions like Morse Code. The other visitors clucking and cooing with them. Clapping their hands to startle them. Strange to Kurt that the peacocks' widespread tails weren't erect but dragged ingloriously behind them on the ground.

All day he had been hearing himself utter flat, banal words for lack of a script, his thoughts on any which of these animals had been in Tarzan, and whether any had been in the rainforest kingdom Noah and he had imagined. Friend or foe? The rows of ominous vultures like furled black umbrellas to the monkeys, lemurs and gorillas chewing on seasonal fruits and fiscus leaves. The visitors were admiring them all, yet all Kurt thought of was Noah, of "Tarzan", the 'ape man'. How from the heat of the day did a sweat droplet, coarsened by talcum powder, inching past his collar and down his chest appear when the eyes of one of these so called 'gentle giants' landed on him, watched him, his anxiety growing under their unwavering dark eyed gazes.

It was a cue for Elizabeth to playfully hug Kurt around the shoulders, and to lead him towards the fragrant habitat of the Herb Gardens and Bonsai Pavilion, to enjoy the species with scents of cedar, rose and apple, the gnarled trunks of the tiny trees bent by the wind for it was too early to view the great Asian Savannah up in a tethered balloon, the idea of high altitude and vast sights of Ugandan giraffes and Grevy's zebra exhausting already little overwhelmed blue eyes, made so translucent in the hot San Diego sun there was a fear they would almost turn clear, yet Kurt moved. He was animated and smiling and clearly very happy to be among such exalted company of the animal kingdom, of his own parents. Just their wee little child of eight.

At last, late afternoon, hair still ruffled from the Flightline Safari, and cheeks pink as if one of the primates had crushed their berries on his skin, Kurt's teddy bear back pack was full of souvenirs, stuffed toys, action figurines and name tags, his teddy bear now a fat teddy bear that weighed him down, strained his back, but ignored. He looked up to see a lazy smile stretching across Burt's cheeks and Elizabeth sucking in her own as she, casting a sidelong glance at her son, chided yet seductive, for that was her way of drawing people in, "There's something I want you to see before we return to the hotel, Kurt. I think you'll like it." Shuffling them both on to the next bus down to San Diego, the journey quick and short into the heart of the city.

Kurt smiled in confusion, trying to think. Had he? The implication seemed to be that he had forgotten something essential, that this was something even his father didn't know of. Elizabeth was shaking her leg anxiously, looking out the slightly dusty window in impatience, "I hope it's not over," she was saying, "Can't this bus go any faster?" She whispered in Burt's ear something that Kurt could not make out, not noticing the smile the man gave him as he observed the San Diego streets, from high tech skyscraper giants to streets with smaller, Spanish-style like houses, "haciendas" Kurt had once heard been used to describe them with fake adobe walls, glaring candy colored tiled roofs and windows, all cramped like miniature dollhouses.

At the next stop, they got off, but on the sidewalk overflowing with people waving around rainbow colored flags, hooting, applause abound. The cameras were flashing what appeared to be moving floats up ahead, some like cotton candy clouds pink, glittering and as brightly decorative as those seen in carnivals, Mardi Gras even, with near to nude muscular men dancing on the platforms to the amplified music, others dressed as women as like pantomime dames and blowing kisses from their lipsticked mouths, the confetti, the colored dust of every color one could imagine shot in the air by circus canons. It was a clamorous parade in which Burt, stealthy as a lion, lifted Kurt up onto his shoulders, there to see it in all its splendor.

Whatever this celebratory parade was, Kurt loved it. The sheer excitement and energy it stirred with traffic having been rerouted for blocks and thousands of spectators pressing themselves raucously up behind the police barricades, tossing rainbow flags underneath the floats, even the decapitated heads of fresh-budded red roses looking like deranged little birds. The crazed chanting all around and everyone's eyes so animated with cheeks glowing. It was a rainbow to the soul, as if a prism had exploded everywhere, the air even smelt of sugar somehow, candied apples, and not of exhaust fumes, his mother now shouting up at him, " Kurt! What do you think, sweetie?!" The smile as he looked down at her. She would never forget.

His fair cheeks would be painted with the rainbow and lipstick stained from "drag queens" they were called. A rainbow flag would be placed in his hand to wave himself until his wrist ached and his vision swam, to keep as a souvenir, and it would be seen in his hand all the way back to the hotel as only then did his parents inform him of what he'd been to. A gay pride parade, the first time he would hear and know of what the word 'gay' meant, and not as in carefree and happy, but the love two people of the same sex had for each other, the love between two men and two women, the hand holding Kurt had seen, the kisses. The word 'sexuality' used, but would be explained when he'd be older. He did not need to worry about that now.

Now that the dreamy haze of the long day was over, such a careening haze, to know that he was soon to go to bed was bracing somehow. In-between the sheets where his worn body could rest, even his cheeks from having smiled as radiantly as a high-wattage light bulb for most of the day, but what a day. Warm rushing fizzing in his blood! The happiness of it all that pounded in his heart. His thoughts were still whirring as his parents wished him goodnight, kissing him on the forehead and answering when he asked curiously, "Is it only humans that can be gay. What about animals?" Elizabeth laughed. "Yes animals too." And Kurt giggled. The idea of an animal gay pride parade at the park bringing forth a big smile as the lights went out.

With parents asleep, so was Kurt, a stuffed toy tucked under his arm as he slept. It was one he'd bought at the park's souvenir shop for a child half his age, maybe two or three, yet it had deeply moved him for reasons he did not know. It was a striped tiger, kitten sized; made of a soft fuzzy fabric you would want to rub against your face. It had golden button eyes, a funny flat nose, springy tickly whiskers, salmon-and-black tiger stripes, a pride wristband Kurt had managed to slip around its neck like a collar and a curving tail with a wire inside so you could move it up, down, even into a question mark, yet a mark now echoed on Kurt's wakening face as with blue eyes blurred in vision, he looked towards the balcony doors, left ajar for the cool air.

The sounds were unmistakably human, a young human, a boy or girl Kurt could not tell, but whoever it was, was imitating a wolf's howl, the pitch smooth but changing direction as many as four to five times throughout, ending in a series of dog-like yelps similar to those of yearling pup like wolves. Though he knew howls were to assemble a pack, to pass an alarm to locate each other during a storm or in unfamiliar territory, a wolf's howl only saddened Kurt. To him, the wolf was in love with the moon and each month it cried for a love it would never touch. The moon, large and bright, littered with impact craters, Kurt could see. The moon so beautiful, at its fullest now as he stepped out onto the balcony, his tiger clutched tightly in his arms.

It was a view that looked over the entire courtyard, a view on the highest level amongst the white painted wooden beams all around like pretty beach scaffolding, with a breeze almost chilling enough to raise goose bumps to the skin, spreading along his arms, his bare legs. He rubbed at them, almost viciously, regretting not bringing along his blanket, as with winced eyes he looked about the sparsely lit garden, only the moon's strange undersea phosphorescence acting as illumination, the howls ever constant, now frustrating yet seemingly quieter as with a "hey! Kurt! Kurt, down here," Kurt looked down to see none other than Noah standing at the foot of the building, looking up at him with that cheeky smiling face he knew. "Noah?"

Kurt was now leaning over the balustrade, almost perilously, his tiger's fur wafting in the breeze as if it were trembling it was so afraid of heights. His mother would have yanked him away with a scream if she'd seen him, would have locked the doors for sure, but it was the strain of trying to hear Noah's reply after asking what he was doing here, to hear him shout "hi!", waving as if he hadn't heard what Kurt had said. Noah himself caught sight of Kurt shushing him with a finger to his lips, his brows frowning as he tried to make out what the child above was saying, but to no avail. The boy was too high up on his regal balcony to be heard and Noah, toeing off his flip flops and nearing the wall, only saw this as a challenge as he began to climb.

The tiger was nearly dropped as Kurt looked on in skin paling horror, stifling his gasps or perhaps tearful whines at the sounds in his mind. Of a hand slipping, a scream for help, for his name, and _crack!_ On the cement below. The crack of a skull, the crack of a back broken. Flashes of a young corpse. Blood spread like strawberry jam. His ever urgent whispers were for Noah to stop, to climb back down, the risk he was putting himself through too high to continue. All that he said clamoured out of his mouth, though did not discourage the ascending boy, and ascending so quickly. His hands pulling him up, feet propelling him against gravity, making easy work of all these balconies as he rose, all so predictable and formulaic in architecture. Piss easy.

It was with a "hi" as like a "boo!" upon an unsuspecting child that Noah, catching Kurt off guard as the fair boy glanced back at his suite, climbed the final stretches, the tiger clutched so tightly to that beating chest the eyes were close to popping. And then there was silence. Kurt's breaths labored. That smile on Noah's face. It was evident on this vivid damp night, the sky partly cobbled in cloud, part open, a gigantic crevice into which you might stare and stare, what people typically did when standing on balconies at night, that simply appearing at his own to acknowledge this Dallas born surfer boy's presence wouldn't appease him, wouldn't have him returning to his own room. For Noah had wished to say hello his own way.

"Hey," said Noah again, straddling the balustrade as Kurt remained silent. "I figured it was too late to come knocking at your door like last time and I was scared to throw a stone at your window in case it broke and landed in your mouth and totally choked you or something so I gave the wolf howl a try. Worked pretty good, right?"

Kurt huffed. "What is it with you and wanting to talk to me at night? Why can't you come to me where you're not half naked in the hall or climbing my balcony?"

"I'm Tarzan remember. Tarzan never plays it safe," smirked Noah, yet Kurt remained unimpressed, the regret of those exact words, his own words uttered in near exasperation during their time of play now pooling guilt in his stomach. _If he really had fallen, if he really had gone, it would have been because of me._

"You could have died, Noah." It only had that dare devil smile growing, how the boy wasn't even safe perched on the balustrade the way he was. _Only one jolt would do it._ _Only one jolt_.

"I know, right," replied Noah proudly, distractedly arranging his crotch against the wood with his hand. "It's like the second radical thing I've done today, this and at lunch I didn't want this family to judge me so I walked past them with two cookies on my plate and four in my pockets. Oh and later when I was standing in line for ice cream, I heard some lady behind me smack her kid and say "don't put your fingers in your ass." I laughed so hard I passed out and woke up in the doctor's office."

"Why do you have to tell me this now? Why not tomorrow when the sun's out and shining? Tarzan likes the sun too you know," complained Kurt to Noah's frustration as the boy now replied., "You're not around during the day, dude; you're always goin' off places. I mean what's so bad about stayin' at the hotel? I'm where's the fun's at. Plus here we have kids sticking their fingers up their butts. That's pretty cool. Party."

Sighing, Kurt asked quietly. "Do you even want to know where I was today?"

"I don't know. You went to a Dunkin Donuts and learned that the employee dudes there really don't care about nothin' cause you ordered six hash browns and they gave you thirteen? Cause that totally happened to me one time," replied Noah casually, near off handedly yet with a smile pulling at the side of his mouth at the memory.

"No, I went to the Wild Adventure Park," answered Kurt, now shifting. "We saw all the animals on all the safaris and that's where I got my tiger, see? Do you like him?"

"Why is he pink with black stripes? Aren't tigers orange?" Inquired Noah, frowning as he took hold of the stuffed animal and looked it over, examining it as the other boy corrected him, saying, "he's not pink, he's salmon."

Glancing at Kurt, Noah's brows furrowed. "Like the fish?"

Kurt giggled. "Like the color, Noah. Orange and pink mixed together makes Salmon. Like green and blue make turquoise and red and blue make purple. Don't you ever finger paint or have coloring books at school?"

"Sure we do, but I never do any of that arty stuff. I don't know how to make anything out of a toilet roll and everyone knows macaroni is for eating. I mean, what are you doin' putting glue on macaroni? 'I'll put glue on you and stick you to paper. I'll make a freakin' masterpiece outta you," answered Noah mock threateningly as Kurt pointed to the tiger.

"Well, this is salmon right here."

Noah shrugged. "Still looks pink to me, and what's with the bracelet thingy around his neck? What's 'PRIDE'?"

"Oh, after the park my mom brought us down into the city to see the Gay Pride Parade, and it was so fun. You should have seen it. They had floats and color dust and confetti and everything. I have one of their rainbow flags in my room," answered Kurt smiling as Noah replied, realization now brightening his face.

"Oh, I've seen those before. I just didn't know what they were about. Thought they were the candy shop equivalent of a barber's pole or somethin'. Well here in California anyway."

"No, my parents told me it was about the celebration of love a man can have with another man and a woman with another woman, and that its completely fine and natural, because animals can be gay too you know. That's what 'gay' also means apart from 'happy', I think, but I never knew it," replied Kurt, his words a muttered end.

For several seconds neither boy spoke until Noah, with quiet voice, said, "I did." Looking up at him with widened eyes, Kurt asked in innocent surprise, "You did?"

"Yeah, it was a couple months ago and a friend of my dad's was asking him how he could explain gay couples to his kids," began Noah, stroking the tiger's fur as he spoke. "I didn't know then what gay meant so I kept listenin' and my dad was like, "if you can explain to your kids that an immortal man in a red suit travels around the entire world from his home at the North Pole on one night every year on a sleigh carried by flying deer, I think it'll be easy enough to tell them two guys are in love"."

"Was you're dad talking about Santa Claus?" Asked Kurt curiously as Noah nodded.

"Yeah, it was the day I realized that so called 'immortal' guy wasn't…"

His words trailed as he glanced at Kurt, the boy now frowning. "Wasn't what?"

_I don't want to tell him. I don't want to be the one, _thought Noah as he replied_, _"nothin'. You can have your tiger back. Reminds me too much of the time the neighbor kid threw a cat at me and my thumb went up its butt hole. God, you gotta fear the cat butt hole."

"What is it with you and butts? They revolve your brain or something?" Asked Kurt with an amused grimace as he hugged his tiger in close to him, with something within Noah's chest lifting considerably upon the sight, now replying more spiritedly, "Have you seen 'em? They're the cushions of the body, dude. So round and squishy, you just want to take a nap on them, bare cheek to bare butt cheek."

Giggling, Kurt smiled. "I don't think I'll rest my cheek on a bare butt cheek any time soon."

"What are you doin' tomorrow?" Asked Noah. "And please don't say you're goin' out again 'cause we needs some hang out time. I needs my Jane here."

The boy's hands gestered out, palms up as if all Kurt needed to do was place his own in them both, to be taken. Yet he asked, frowning. "Your Jane?"

Noah lowered his hands to rest in his lap. "You know, Jane to my Tarzan. I needs my Jane to run around this place in undies and blanket capes like we're the freakin' kings of unemployment."

"I can't be Jane, I'm not a girl," countered Kurt with a shaking head, maybe his eyes shifting down to the hem of his top, his thighs, _the thing in-between_, yet Noah shrugged.

"Fine, you can be my Gay Jane. You can come down with me to the beach tomorrow and watch me surf. I'll be like Tarzan when he surfs on trees, but on water. Cool huh?"

Kurt now hesitated. "What will you do if I'm not around tomorrow? What if my parents are taking me to Legoland or buying me a new Magic 8 ball?"

"Why do you need a new one?" Asked Noah inquiringly as Kurt smiled, one pulled as if he were telling a secret, or perhaps an amusing anecdote.

"Before coming here, I accidentally drank the liquid inside the old one and I was sort of predicting the future all day. My doctor said it was just water but… I knew he'd die the next day anyway."

Noah leaned forward. "Did he?"

Shaking his head, Kurt replied. "No, but he came close. He choked on one of his own lollipops. It was a strawberry one. His favorite."

"Can you still predict the future? I wanna know if you're here tomorrow. Otherwise I'm gonna be stuck listenin' to my dad talk about signing on a band who want to release a concept album where all the song titles are taken from craigslist personal ads," sulked Noah, picking at the balustrade in-between his legs as Kurt now cocked his head.

"What's Craigslist?"

Noah shrugged. "Ebay but you sell people instead. I don't know. Point is, I want my Gay Jane here with me. Can't be Tarzan without him."

"If I come along you won't try to hold me whilst you surf will you? You're still only Tarzan in his munchkin years," replied Kurt, Noah quick to answer as he straightened his back. "Still Tarzan. Tell me to undo a bra strap from a yuck babe, you know, a fat lady on the beach and I'll bring it to you."

Kurt stood silent before his head began to shake unsurely, tempted to shape the tiger's tail into a question mark next to his face, now speaking, "I don't think that's the same as getting an elephant hair."

"You still need skill. Last time I did it I accidentally touched the wiener of the yuck dude sleeping next to her and they both ended up chasing me half way across the beach. It was so funny," chuckled Noah as Kurt once again shook his head, this time a betrayed smile appearing as he now replied, "I don't think that's the same as a stampede either."

Noah laughed heartily, his balance wavering. "Oh no, they were real chubbies. Knocked over big ass sandcastles, tripped over crawling babies. Chaos."

"How can you ever go back there without fearing they'll force feed you seaweed or stuff sand down your bum crack? They'd probably sacrifice you to a land shark if they knew how scared you are of them," warned Kurt as Noah snorted in derision, an arrogant smirk now only left.

"I'd just go out surfing where they can't reach me. Jurisdiction my butt, the water's my territory. Badass thrill seeker on the waves, baby. Just watch me."

Sighing as he eyed the boy, Kurt finally relented. "OK, I'll be there."

"You will?" Asked Noah excitedly, and so excitedly at that as Kurt nodded nervously.

"Yeah, I don't think I have anything on tomorrow anyway."

Quickly swinging his leg over, Noah hopped off the balustrade onto the deck. "Awesome sauce! This is gonna be so cool! I can totally show you the move I've been workin' on. It's like a cutback but instead of turning the board back to the breaking wave you only do it a little before surging forward. Gives you a boost, and makes you go superfast."

"Show me whatever you want," replied Kurt, a step taken back from Noah's sudden approach, one so close to him. "Just don't go around touching bra straps or spaghetti straps or-"

"Spaghetti straps?" Frowned Noah, cocking his head like a dog at the mention of food as Kurt replied, "They're not really made out of spaghetti Noah. They're just called that because the shoulder straps on their clothes look like thin spaghetti pasta strings. I think my mom said they also call them noodle straps."

"What? Who are these chicks wearing pasta on their bodies? I've never seen this," began Noah, hazel eyes darting around distractedly like a child told he'd collected all but one Easter egg on a hunt.

"Noah," smiled Kurt as the boy continued, "Dude, come on. Spaghetti and noodle straps? If these chicks want to wear these they're gonna have to be careful, 'cause they will distract me from my surfing. I'll start thinking of spaghetti and I will get hungry and I will stop at nothing to get my spaghetti."

"Okay, I'm confused. You'd stop at nothing to get spaghetti straps if they were made of spaghetti or actual spaghetti?" Inquired Kurt uncertainly with features muddled.

Yet Noah replied without hesitation, saying, "Whichever one is closer. I've told you I can outrun angry naked boobed women. I'll have my spaghetti to give me energy. Like Popeye and his spinach."

Kurt's eyes lowered, doubt now resonating as he spoke, "I'm starting to think going to the beach isn't such a good idea."

"Dude it's alright, I'm only messin with you. I'm all about the surf. Total passion boy here for it. I'll come knock on your door after breakfast and we can go down together," grinned Noah, his body now starting to angle itself to the balustrade but pulled facing forward once more as Kurt shook his head vehemently.

"No, you're not climbing back down, you'll sleep here. I don't want you dead before I can see your moves on a board."

Noah's grin widened. "Totally. Let's slumber party this bitch."

"You'll have to sleep on the couch but they're pretty comfy. I mean they're not the best but... Noah? Come on," urged Kurt, having begun to return inside only to turn and see Noah, still, unmoving, with hazel eyes up at the sky and speaking with lofty resignation.

"You know what they say about a full moon? That it's the mistletoe of the night sky."

Kurt frowned. "No they say it makes people not sleep which makes them crazy which makes them spontaneously shape shift into werewolves."

"Come here Gay Jane. Come give Tarzan some sugar," smiled Noah invitingly with those palms once again on offer, that same offer eyed in blue as Kurt's brows furrowed ever more.

"What? No." He replied in discomfort as Noah grinned, "You want me to lift your pajama top to look at your undies? Cause that's what Tarzan did in the film."

Kurt now pointed out, "Yeah, and he got kicked in the face for it. It was a real class act. Now stop acting weird and come with me before my parents wake up."

"Ow I can't. My lips really hurt. Can you kiss them better?" Asked Noah now, tracing his lips as if swollen, yet Kurt did not move, irritation settling in as he said only the boy's name with a tone of warning, "Noah."

Noah paused, finger still pressed to his bottom lip but eyes high as if racing his mind for an idea, thoughts whirring even as he now grinned. "No actually you should probably kiss me to surprise me then I guess punch me hard in the face so I don't get attached. Yeah, let's do that."

"No, I have a better idea," began Kurt, nearing the other boy as he spoke. "I'll kiss you slowly and then when you least expect it I'll jam my tongue down your throat so no one can hear your screams, swallow you whole and slither away like the feisty anaconda I am."

Noah grinned. "Neat! Would an anaconda really be able to fit me in its whole mouth?" Kurt smiled, nodding. "Sure. They said at the park that they have very flexible lower jaws so little surfer boys from Dallas would be no problem."

"Pfft, I'd just crawl right on out and kill the thing with my trusted spear head. No snake intimidates me," replied Noah, that arrogant self-displaying confidence returning with hands on hips.

"Because you're Tarzan?" Asked Kurt, one brow raised for he knew the answer.

"That's right babe, I'm Tarzan. Ape man of the rainforest. Rockin' the loin cloth to hide my junk and swinger of vines as I'd lead my band of Donkey Kongs to banana country with Gay Jane by my side givin' me the sweet stuff."

"Go suck a lemon ape boy, I'm going to bed," replied Kurt, retreating from Noah's overtly puckered lips now approaching, nearing and ready to leave behind something wet on his own, or perhaps on the side of his mouth from a miscalculation of trajectory, to slide across his cheek and to leave behind a saliva trail like that of disgusting slug mucus that had him retreating all the faster as the other boy followed, laughing, "I'm kiddin' Kurt. Kurt, I'm only… Gee, you're so easy to mess around with."

The blanket from the foot of Kurt's bed was used to cover Noah that night, the boy sleeping on the couch with the cushions rearranged messily for his soon sprawling body that dangled floppy almost boneless looking limbs off the side, the feet, dirty at the soles, poking out at the end. You'd fear he'd roll right off, yet he wouldn't wake upon the thump he appeared that out of it. And there was Kurt in his own bed, falling back to sleep a little while after, his tiger tucked under his arm with the idea of having to explain to his parents in the morning upon their stumbled discovery of the other boy in their room prolonging the process, but eventually blue eyes rested and blue eyes closed, blind to hazel eyes now peering at him through the dark.

_He looked like any other kid as he slept, that tiger of his squeezed right into him so close and I stayed where I was on the couch with my blanket for Kurt was right, it wasn't all that bad. Yet I wasn't tired. The cold from outside, the climb. The thrill had seeped into my bones and I didn't know what to do with it except tire myself to sleep taking in the room, the belongings, Kurt. I guessed the dreams he was having, wondered if he'd shift incessantly, moan something incomprehensible, a name perhaps on a face crinkling like an infant's on the verge of tears, maybe even sleep walk into a wall, but no. He stayed put and I lay there transfixed upon the fair palm I'd put on my own against, and the pretty parted lips I'd puckered mine to, but never reached…_

* * *

**~ PLEASE REVIEW ~**

(But if you wish to criticize, may it be constructive. I'm not going to learn from my mistakes and improve if you vent.)

**Disclaimer:** I do not own the rights to the characters from Glee as I don't own the show. I'm not earning money from this and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.  
**  
~ STAY TUNED FOR MORE BY FOLLOWING/FAVORITING ~**


	4. Play Boys

_**THE CHILD  
**__2001  
_

**IV**

**~ Play Boys ~**

_Fear! _A horrid start to a deep restful fair boy awakened from astonishing, skyrocket dreams early to find that his tiger was no longer beside him, the nook he'd created for it bare of that synthetic fur and on the verge of panicking only to discover it on the floor, perhaps having rolled off from tossing and turning, all harmlessly animated by said dreams. Dreams of running barefoot on the beach and laughing, the sand a silver blonde that had suffused a strange passionate strength in his body. He had jumped and skipped childishly, almost frivolously at the sight of the waves, and at the sight of a surfer on those waves, riding quick like a glimmering scaled fish breaking the water, a mere millisecond flicker before the disappearance.

There was Noah now on the couch, twitching, lurching and grinding his teeth as if he was stealthily riding upon his surf board, harsh waves beneath him that grew and morphed into a mouth hungry enough to gobble him up. _Munch! Munch! Munch!_ Kurt could have laughed. The boy was energetic in sleep as he was out of it and he pondered if he ought to comfort him before he'd end up like his tiger, on the ground, but he didn't. Elizabeth was already looking on from the doorway, curious, looking at her son with a frown that only had him dashing across the carpet on pitter patter like feet, _they were so small you'd hardly think they'd make a sound even in speed_, and into the bathroom, the door shutting, the light turning on with a _click!_

Blinding white tile, mirrors reflecting mirrors, and there he splashed cold water over his face, the faucet turned on so strong he could not hear his mother's gentle knocks, her voice calling out his name, though capped at a volume that wouldn't wake her still dormant husband or the little boy on their couch. His sweet mother, already dressed in a white crocheted dress of pretty Persian inspired design with a turquoise bikini peeking cheekily from underneath as if she too had plans to go down to the beach as well, perhaps to join them where Noah would then be nervous to approach him like a child drinking from the bathroom faucet because they were simply too embarrassed to ask their friend's mother where the cups were in the kitchen.

Such a comparison was quick to squash Kurt's current ideas of lowering his head under the faucet with his lips parted, mouth open with ballooning cheeks, gurgling even until he'd choke and cough violently from rushed gulps of water, as on tip toes, he reached over the sink and turned it off, and extra tight so as for it not to drip. Yet it dripped anyway. Would have left his palm beetroot red if he'd applied any more pressure, his fingers dried on the canary yellow hand towel hanging neatly beside the sink, with his name no longer called from beyond, knocks since ceased at the door that he now unlocked and peered around to see Elizabeth at the far end crouching by Noah, the boy now awakening with Kurt's blanket crumpling around his body.

"Good morning, Noah," smiled Elizabeth softly as Noah blinked up at her with squinted, tired eyes, eyes he rubbed as he rose groggily to a slumped sitting position on the couch, voice low as he spoke, " … hey… what's shakin'? … Mrs Kurt."

Elizabeth giggled. "Call me Elizabeth, sweetie. Or Mrs. H if you prefer. I don't mind. Did you sleep well?" Noah nodded as the woman looked him over. "I see Kurt lent you his pajamas, and blanket. That was nice of him."

Noah nodded. "Yeah… it's real soft."

"That's because it's made of cashmere sweetie. It's a type of wool we get from cashmere goats. They have very fine, strong and light hair, so if you're ever looking for a blanket, try to find one that's made of this. It'll keep you warm and snug at night," smiled Elizabeth, stroking the blanket fondly as Noah said, "Well this one sure was, Mrs H."

The woman now nodded. "That's why I bought it for Kurt. He very much likes to be around soft things, but you didn't sleep here for the blanket did you Noah?"

"No um… Kurt let me in after I er… after I howled like a wolf from that er… garden place and it totally worked," Explained the boy, blinking his tired hazel eyes as Elizabeth scoffed an amused frown, asking, "You were howling from outside? When was this, sweetie?"

Noah shrugged. "I don't know. I just came round to see Kurt, wanted to see how my Gay Jane was doin''cause he's never around, and um… yeah, he let me crash on your couch when he said I couldn't climb back down the balcony."

"You climbed our balcony?" Gasped Elizabeth, guilt now stammering the boy's reply, "Only because Kurt and I couldn't hear each other. He kept on shushing me when I tried to shout because of the sleeping peeps around."

Elizabeth sighed. "Noah, next time you wish to see Kurt, please come to the door. Do not climb our balcony. If my son had stolen Rapunzel's scalp or if we'd had vines hanging off the sides it would have been different, but please, all you need do is knock. Okay, Romeo?"

"Sure thing, Mrs. H. You can count on me to come a-knockin'," grinned Noah more assuredly as Elizabeth smiled.

"Good, and you know we're also here during the day sometimes, so it's okay to come knocking to see Kurt then."

Frowning, the boy protested. "But Kurt's not there during the days, Mrs H. None of you are. I come to your door and no one answers, and I had to climb your balcony last night just to see him because he says he was too tired to see me… He probably forgot about me."

"He hasn't forgotten you Noah, don't be silly. Just yesterday when we were viewing the gorillas at the zoo, he mentioned they reminded him of you. In fact, I think your Tarzan themed play dates may have had him thinking of you many a time throughout our stay there. So you needn't worry," assured Elizabeth, her hand on Noah's knee as he spoke, "Wish I could go with you guys though. I wanna ride a kickass Safari and see the animals too, and gay pride fun times sounds hella dope."

"Kurt told you about that did he?"

Noah nodded. "Yeah, he even showed me his tiger and totally mando wristbandy thingy. It was cute."

Her smile widening, Elizabeth walked over to her straw tote bag by the dresser, speaking as she did. "I have a spare, you know. Kurt may have bought you a little something from the zoo's souvenir store, but this can be from me if you want it. Just a little taster from our day."

Noah smiled as she returned with a pride wristband of his own. "Thanks, Mrs H."

"Doesn't your father take you out from time to time?" Inquired Elizabeth, the boy sliding on the wristband with difficulty as she helped him, all the while listening as he spoke, "If I wanted him to, sure, but he knows I'm plenty happy doin' what the hotel has got goin' on, and the beach here is totes legit, so no pressure. It'd just be weird for me goin' to Legoland without a friend, you know? Not that dad's a lamo, but goin' with Kurt, rad, like these wristbands. We can be like total gay bros."

"Well, Kurt only took his own because he thought it looked pretty," laughed Elizabeth, "but I've yet to explain to him that when wearing this, it's not a mere accessory, but a way of raising awareness for gay people everywhere in a world that isn't nice to them. Okay, Noah. When you wear this, you're saying to everyone that you support them, that you believe in their right for equality."

Noah frowned. "What's the world's beef with gay people? Have they seen these bitchin' wristbands?"

"There are just people out there who don't trust what they can't explain, sweetie, and that's the ugly truth, but they'll see in time, as Phil Collins says if I remember so correctly." The woman smiled as Noah nodded firmly.

"'Cause Phil Collins keeps it real like that."

Patting the wristband around the boy's wrist, Elizabeth glanced over to the bedroom. "He sure does. Since May I've heard nothing but his voice. Kurt just loves that song. I mean, he'll play them all, but it'll be that one stuck on repeat."

"I always skipped it when we were playing… He didn't say anything," Muttered Noah with a lowered gaze as Elizabeth turned to look back at him, her sympathetic smile still in place.

"Well I admit it's not the best song to have when your swash buckling pirates or riding the back of rampaging dinosaurs." The boy's eyes now shot up to meet hers. "That's right; he told me all your adventures. You two make quite the duo."

Lowering his gaze once again, Noah muttered glumly. "... the song's not that bad."

"So what have you got on today, Noah? We're staying at the hotel so Kurt's free," smiled Elizabeth, wishing to bring the boy out from this sudden onset of regret and woebegone gloom as he replied, "I know. We're goin' down to the beach so I can show him some awesome surf moves I've been working on."

A lovely smile. "Oh yes, Kurt has told me. I hear you're quite the surfer."

Now in higher spirits, Noah nodded with a grin. "That's right Mrs. H. I'm gonna be a total allright dude real soon."

"Well then, we better get you ready. It's just gone eight now and you've yet to have breakfast," smiled Elizabeth perkily, and with another pat to Noah's knee, she made to rise, yet the boy shook his head, stilling her movements as she frowned his way.

"I can't Mrs H. I'm not supposed to eat in the two to three hours before paddling out 'cause it will slow me down and won't digest quickly enough to give me any kind of shot in the arm, but I can drink water. Lots and lots of water… Yum."

"That's all you're to run on? Noah, even the L.A. diet has a cube of cheese to go with that," replied Elizabeth in mild concern as she slowly crouched back down to Noah's reply, "No I get all my energy from food I've already digested and stuck in my tummy bank. See, what I ate yesterday will give me energy for the surf today."

The woman acquiesced, sighing. "Well, if you say so sweetie, but I know that I am in definite need of tea and Kurt will need a little something in him too before you go."

"Where is Kurt?" Asked Noah, searching eyes now on Kurt's empty unmade bed as Elizabeth replied, helping him untangle from the blanket as he rose from the couch.

"He's in the bathroom, but he's been in there for quite some time. In fact, the last time I recall him having been in the bathroom this long was when he was four and I walked in on him making a 'potion' out of all my bathroom products. Said if I drank them I wouldn't have to bathe again-oh there he is. Kurt, is that you?"

"Hi," greeted Kurt shyly from around the bathroom door, only his protruding head and accompanying wave visible.

"Kurt, darling, what are you doing? Come out and say good morning to Noah before he goes," instructed Elizabeth with a gesture to the boy beside her, to which Kurt replied, "I can't… I'm naked."

His mother frowned. "What are you doing naked?"

Her fair son hesitated slightly with a glance to the floor before timidly answering. "I'm having a bath. Can… can you help me run it?"

"Dude, just make some funky juice out of your shampoo and shower gel. You won't have to bathe again," joked Noah with a smirk to which Kurt frowned when both the boy and his mother exchanged amused smiles, an inside joke that he could only question confusedly, "What?"

From recovered giggles, Elizabeth said, "darling, you don't need a bath. You can bathe in the sea. With all its vitamins and mineral salts, it'll be very good for you. How do you think Noah's skin here looks so healthy?"

"Actually, I wear a rash guard when I surf Mrs. H, and sometimes the suits too 'cause I'm a kid," replied Noah as the woman tenderly wrapped a hand around his little shoulders.

"Well in any case you have a lovely skin tone Noah. You should count yourself lucky. It's a shade some risk skin cancer to get and even then it'll only turn their skin the texture of a weathered Louis Vuitton overnight bag."

Noah nodded. "In surf lingo, we call 'em sunnies. They're always bakin', always with the sunglasses."

"Well you can be sure I won't be joining them. Kurt and I share the same skin in that we burn rather than tan so neither of us can stay in the sun too long. We're just not used to the heat, are we Kurt?"

The fair boy nodded to his mother's question as Noah asked anxiously. "How long can you stay? I want to be with Kurt for as long as I can."

Elizabeth smiled assuredly. "Don't worry Noah, sweetie. He's all yours, but not before we get you back to your father. He does know you're here, doesn't he?"

"Well, before I left, I kinda made a fake me by stuffing cushions from the couch under the comforter and using my volleyball on the pillow for a head, so he may be freaking out about now," replied Noah, smiling at Kurt's muffled laughter as Elizabeth's eyes widened.

"Okay, all the more reason to get moving. Kurt, say goodbye to Noah. I want you dressed and ready by the time I get back, alright."

Kurt nodded obediently. "Okay. See you later Noah."

Waving, Noah smirked. "S'laters, my Gay Jane!"

Soon ushered out in a flurry, an adult hand in the crook of the child's back, to that sound of their door closing firmly behind them and Kurt was stood still peering out from behind his own at the spot where they had once stood, his teasing mother beside a boy clad in a set of Kurt's own lent pajamas, the top creased across his stomach, the collar perhaps lopsided with the pajama bottoms having risen up to his navel during the night like high waisted underwear to reveal his ankles. Hair extra spiky as if rubbed vigorously with a balloon with hazel eyes tired, slightly pinkened from rubbing, but awakening, very much alive, as Kurt smiled only to jump at a voice from his parent's bed, his father now asking, "Did that boy just call you his 'Gay Jane'?"

Of course, the flurry was soon to sweep across the floor of their room once again, amongst the hurricane that unmistakable strawberry blonde hair swishing under a straw hat, for as soon as Kurt had buckled on his favorite pair of white Lottie sandals, eye-catching pink tee shirt and lemon yellow shorts with a purple belt fastened tightly, it was sunblock "_check!_" Parasol "_check!_" Beach mat "_check!_" His mother's tote bag straining even with everything folded as neatly as could be as with a kiss to her still bed lounging husband, Kurt's own kiss to his tiger that he'd wished to bring along with him but advised not to at risk of losing it, yet with the pride wristband suggested by Elizabeth's winking smile, it was down to breakfast they went.

Earl Grey tea, fruit smoothies with bowls of oats dolloped in Greek yogurt and raisons. Elizabeth was the one to order both their breakfasts as Kurt sat with upright posture as if his spine had no curvature to it, napkin on his lap hardly ever used as with his miniature bites, his little lips would hardly stain, hardly chewing now as his mother informed him that Noah's father, Mr Puckerman would be joining them, chaperoning in fact for the whole day as she only planned to stay until lunch, asking her son now if he was comfortable with Mr. Puckerman, did he like him. Kurt answered simply with a nod and eying their two seated table, no newspaper folded back to a vertical strip and lain beside a black coffee. The first breakfast here without Burt.

In the foyer with little searching, it was Mr Puckerman who waved at them, calling them over with that Los Angelino suave somewhat reminiscent of a 1940s movie producer yet with a Texas pang that hooked the attention. "Elizabeth! Kurt! Over here!" A large drawstring jute rucksack slung over his shoulder, the admiring looks of the passing women around, with Noah by his side, dressed now in his own clothes of a red tiki shirt and flip flops, and smiling as the Hummel's approached, the only mother and son staying at the Del with the most remarkable blue eyes, so beautiful liquidy dream like that served not to see them but somehow inside them, entrusting these Puckerman males to lead them to the beach's crème de la crème hotspot.

Children in front, parents behind was the setup and Noah with his eyes so excited, face so flame like with it, was quick to walk in time with Kurt, their shoulder's almost bumping with the fair boy only now taking note of Noah's surf board tucked closely to the body under his arm, the leash dangling at the back, a board shaped almost like that of an Aztec spear head meant to slice right through the water like the bow of a ship. White in shade, with black wave inspired designs running along the sides it had the fair boy imagining them as ancient language inscriptions that when ridden on the waves would summon Neptune's horses to gallop the race to the beach, the spirit of every one of those great white stallion's aiding the surfer to the finish.

Oh, the sight of the Pacific Ocean, such vast open water, light reflecting off it like metal and always that cloudy blue, never the slate-gray of a rocky shore, never dark bitter green of a pond, even very little trailing seaweed and froth with every shift the water made. Upon first step on its golden beach, shoes were removed to venture out along the parasol and wind breaker studded stretch, through the throng of half-naked people to their chosen spot where camp was set up with beach mats laid upon the sand so fine it was hardly a hindrance, their own sugar pill colored parasol erected with bags encircling the pole for support in case of turbulent wind, yet only air fresh, briny and wet with windborne spray welcomed them as they settled.

With the vibrant sea calling ahead, Noah's surfboard had to be waxed before the paddle, a standard routine he'd been advised to repeat every so often yet with personal tastes dictating he do it when 'glassy clean' faced waves were 'juicy' and not 'choppy', a gut instinct in the training. He'd since lodged his board firmly in the sand (with no sawhorses to balance it on) as with concentric circles, often interlaced with cross crossed motions of his hand, the boy rubbed the small cube of high temperature wax he'd fished out from his father's bag along the deck of the board, enjoying the way the wax often skipped over the forming bumps on the surface, the low pitched squeak it would make gritting his teeth into a satisfied open grin.

This grin was raised to his father, the man keeping watch in front and making sure his son was doing exactly what his instructor had said for him to do, though he already knew the boy could wax a board well. He'd seen him do it a number of times, for it hadn't taken long for him to catch on quick. Perhaps all this unnecessary overseeing was a wish to come across as a more attentive father than he'd previously let on when in Elizabeth's company, not that he thought she believed he and Noah were anything short of close, or that he was neglectful, but that when in her presence, the bond she appeared to share with her own son was difficult to match with his own, not to mention her beauty that had him all the more willing to please.

Elizabeth was indeed a beautiful woman, Thomas now glancing back at her sitting cross legged on the beach mat with her crocheted dress now off and bikini on full show, outlining her heart shaped ass like that Betty Grable bathing-suit pinup, and sitting in perfect pinup posture too as Kurt spread sunblock on her back, for she had already done the rest of her perfect body that morning, her fair luminous skin so perfect and not strewn with sunspots like most women her age, her legs not vein-splotched and fat at the knees either, but shapely like a dancer's, like a singer even with deep breaths that expanded her rib cage, one of those ribs that had so obviously been used to fashion the fair boy behind her, that sweet little creature of hers.

This was Noah's friend, one his son was trying to impress with all this unnecessary waxing. Oh yes, his father knew. A warm up, a precursor to the surfing later on with an invitation for Kurt to come comb the wax only to pause, his movements slowing to a halt as Elizabeth now came to sit behind her son, undressing him down to his white swimming briefs, a white so near to blending with the pale translucence of his skin, even the white sunblock was hard to detect with _spritz! Spritz! Spritz!_ So many confident jets showering all around Kurt's body and blended by elegant fingers that mesmerized the eyes, Noah's eyes fixed, his own hand resuming the waxing though now in imitation of Elizabeth's motions on her son's body, as if caught in a trance.

Fellow beach goers passing by or even those neighboring close to the scene may have noted from out of sunglass tinted peripheral or direct vision the way these two Puckerman males were watching these two. That very handsome man breaking out in sweat; his shirt damp, his head steamy, all perhaps from the heat, yet the strain in his shorts, that outline, out of his scrotum his penis throbbed angry as a first over that strawberry blonde, even the innocent looking boy she was touching, the briefs showing the crack of his baby buttocks if he dared to look, yet decency overcame him as he now looked away with a clearing of his throat and a swift not to subtle rearranging of his manhood as he returned his attention to his son beside him.

Yet that boy, one they'd seen before riding the waves on that surfboard of his, good looking like his father though a punk in the making, remained watchful only to sneak suspicious glances of confusion down at his crotch, hidden by the board, shifting nervously, an erection of his own perhaps, yet at a boy his age? It was unheard of, no? How old was the child? Eight, nine, maybe ten? Older looking than his paler friend, yes, but still. A sexual awakening in one so very young? Oh, it only rendered the scene even juicier! What a voyeuristic sight. So fascinating with fair mother and child finishing up, oblivious not only to them, but to everyone around, for no one had really seen what had gone on, not even the family several feet away.

"Now Kurt, even with this sunblock on I don't want you staying in the sun until you boil like a retired circus animal. If you start to smell something cooking, come right back. I will be here," began Elizabeth, placing the sunblock back in her bag as Kurt asked, "Aren't you going to come watch Noah surf?"

His mother smiled, fleeting a glance over at the other boy. "I think he'd much rather you went and watched sweetie. Besides I've got a good view of the waves from here. I'll still be able to see him."

"I hope so. I think he's going to be great," replied Kurt with body near bouncing with enlivened anticipation as Elizabeth's smile grew.

"I think so too sweetie. Be sure to encourage him out there. He's grown very fond of you, you know." Her son was quick to cease his movements as he eyed her curiously rupturing a high melodious laugh from his mother, now elaborating, "Except for your headmaster, I've never seen someone take such a liking to you. He likes to call you his 'Gay Jane' does he?"

"Yeah, since he's Tarzan, I'm Jane, but because I'm a boy, I'm his 'Gay Jane'… It doesn't make sense, does it?" Asked Kurt as Elizabeth smiled.

"Well sweetie, gay means you're attracted to the same sex. So if Jane had been gay in the movie, she wouldn't have been with Tarzan in the end would she. With you and Noah, you'd have to find a male equivalent of the name Jane like, I don't know, Jack, and then you could call yourself Gay Jack. See how he likes that, or him Gay Tarzan. Whichever."

"Gay Tarzan. That's funny," laughed Kurt as Elizabeth leaned in closer.

"Well if it means anything, I did give him our spare pride wristband. You're not the only thing he's grown fond of. See." Pointing over at Noah, she indicated to his wrist indeed encircled by the rainbow wristband. "Kurt, I want you to spend as much time with him as you want, alright. If he asks you to go play with him or if you wish to invite him to have breakfast or dinner with us sometime, don't hesitate. Just have fun."

"I already do, mommy. I've seen him every day since we got here," stated Kurt, unclear as to what Elizabeth was alluding to, a minor shrug in his shoulders as she replied with a hand feathering itself across his fringe, a small brush.

"I know, but from now on, I don't want you to feel obliged to stay with mommy and daddy. You see us all the time at home and you only have a few days of this holiday left to spend with Noah so I want you to make the most of it. You may never see him again after this."

"No mommy, don't say that. I won't have fun if I think about t-that," pleaded Kurt, sadness suddenly awash within him with his face soon stricken, a look of animal terror shining in his dilated eyes that watered as Elizabeth pulled him into her arms, now saying, "Oh my poor baby, come here."

Trembling and breathless, and very warm and sobbing, his mother hugged him close, feeling his quivering shoulder blades, the tension in his spine. "It's alright, sweetie. Everything's going to be alright."

"I don't won't to say goodbye to Noah, mommy," sniffed Kurt as he blubbered into her shoulder, the words recalling the time she'd taken him for a swimming lesson at the town pool, half way across in breaststroke only to suddenly imagine his life without his parents, alone an orphan that had had him floundering, flailing as he'd cried, his goggles filling with tears, his lungs water, climbing out and running into his mother's arms as he was now, his pale ghost face ever so damp, eyes raw.

"Mommy, I really like Noah… m-ommy," said Kurt again which only aggravated his mother's guilt. She was thinking she'd never felt so bad in all her adult life. To see her little boy in this state, Thomas now looking over in concern as he mouthed, 'is he alright?' To which she mouthed nodding in response, 'he's okay, he'll be fine'. Never again would she doubt Kurt's own fondness of Noah. She should have known better. Her son's emotions had always been more guarded than the average child.

"Sweetie, you don't have to say goodbye yet. Our holiday's not over and Noah's still here. He's not going anywhere. In fact he was the one saying earlier this morning that lately it felt like he wanted to see you more than you wanted to see him," recounted Elizabeth as Kurt pulled away protesting with hands rubbing at his tear stained eyes.

"That's not true! I do want to see him. It's just that daddy's always taking us away from the hotel." His mother smiled. "What if I have a talk with him?"

"Won't he be angry if we mess with his plans? I want to stay with Noah, but I still want to go to Legoland tomorrow," replied Kurt, gulping down something heavy lodged at the back of his throat, still sniffling despite the heat that had Elizabeth pulling out a packet of tissues from her bag and wiping his face gently as she spoke, "Well, what if we invite Noah along with us? He's already expressed interest in coming along."

His face brightening, Kurt squealed. "Oh yes, mommy! Please can he come!"

"Of course he can. I'll have a word with his father, but can I leave it up to you to ask Noah yourself? I'm sure it would sound so much better coming from you, don't you think so?" Smiled Elizabeth as with no time to discarding of the tissue her son threw himself into her arms, jiggling them both up and down in rivets of excitement, now crying out, "thank you, thank you, thank you mommy! You're the best!"

Smiling, his mother replied. "Now go on sweetie, or you'll miss your friend's moves."

The comb had since been raked through the wax coated board, made sticky, with Thomas applying the finishing touches as Noah adjusted the thin wet suit on his body, metallic grey, black with patches of cobalt blue the shade of lightning or the coursing of high powered electricity spaced evenly across the sides of the torso and shoulders, a "shortie", the sleeves cut short before the elbow and reaching just above the knees on the legs, all made of a material Kurt now tentatively raised his hand to touch as he felt the foamed neoprene from underneath his fair fingertips, a feeling so akin to what he imagined a seal's coat must have felt like, a shark skin even to resist abrasion, to keep that buoyancy, with Noah watching on, smiling.

And _poof!_ In clouds of sand, in speed of a racing set of superhero comic book characters they ran towards the surf, one that shone from the sunshine, hurting their eyes, yet they couldn't look away, Kurt himself never looked away as with a lull in the waves, Noah walked his board right out into the waist deep water, laying his body on the deck as he found the optimum trim, now paddling with crawling strokes of his arms, the board now gliding as he cupped his hands to increase the pull and always balancing himself through the "chop", left side balanced, right side balanced, head, legs, all balanced, until _zoom!_ He was off, already catching shallow broken white waver waves for the warm up. Oh yes, this little "fig" surfer was only getting started.

Where seawater caressed fair feet some swore were too light to sink into the damp sand from under, Kurt looked on with hands caught in a stirred finger fiddling clasp at his chest, perhaps anxious, but more so excited as with Thomas now jogging up to stand beside him, he watched as Noah got out into the line-up, sitting up to straddle the board, catching wave after wave after wave, eventually hopping on and popping up to a standing position, though not to say he didn't wobble a tad, perhaps he fell in once or twice with a splash, but this boy was ever the resilient surfer, his father shouting for him to keep his weight centered and body slanted forward, and Kurt too shouting words of encouragement as Elizabeth looked on from afar.

_Noah was on that board for more than two hours and for every minute of those hours he was a nervous wreck inside. Trying so hard to impress Kurt, to please his father. The pressure he was putting himself through. Even I could tell his little feet were trembling on that deck, the way he wavered on those waves, rushed himself to get back into position with impatience when he mistimed the sea, losing focus from distraction only to capsize and fall in. Poor boy. He was ever so worried but such a good sport for getting back up every time where soon after and he was riding those waves the way we knew he could, pulling those moves he'd told us about, and so grateful to us all for never straying as if he'd never faltered once. We were so proud of him. _

Another hour passed, now midday though nearing one o'clock, with the sky a pale fading blue like a watercolor riddled with vaporous swift-scudding clouds, all evaporating from the heat and word from Thomas, drenched and dripping wet as he traipsed back with Noah's surf board in hand was that both boys were now playing in the ocean. Having been hard to get Noah off his board he'd gotten so into it, by the end wishing even to teach Kurt as the fair boy had splashed him instead, both frolicking to grab each other's legs from underwater like sea creatures of the deep, piggyback riding on Thomas who'd flipped them back into the water, underwater breathing competitions, water games like Marco Polo and tag, a whirlpool of laughter.

Yes, two boys, yet only one returned and less in assured air as he had been since they'd arrived on the beach, Kurt, now patted dry with his towel by his mother's hands who'd since packed her belongings to return to Burt in their suite as her son let both her and Thomas now that Noah had been called over by a group of children settled not too far from them, some of them Kidtopian, Kurt could remember. He was quiet, dusting off the sand that clung to his skin with faint wipes of his hand. He didn't want Elizabeth to leave him when he felt like this, abandoned and in fear, even saying he'd wanted to join her and dad, but with a kiss to his head and a "see you later, sweetie. Have fun," she'd left with a parting wave. "Just smile, Kurt!"

The fair boy practiced smiling at the towel beneath him, a small smile, no too shy, so pathetic. An open smile, no, too cheesy, too much gum on show. Thomas was to sit beside Kurt and catch every one of these smiles, the strangest boy he'd ever seen and the most insecure at such a young age. He felt sorry for him, wishing to give him money, one and five dollar bills so he could buy something nice for himself as he waited for Noah. Kurt, the kind of boy who obeyed, or who wanted to obey, so if you were responsible you would take care what you would tell him to do. When they would put their trust in you, it was a temptation worse than when they were distrustful. And at his age they were ever so naïve, would turn to anyone when alone.

There was a certain air of authority to Thomas. The square jaw and cheekbones Kurt knew Noah would inherit. The man had once been a swimmer in his twenties and still fit now with his body sturdy and compact, muscular even to add to that figure of dominance that reassured Kurt with safety. The boy talking to him now, he was smarter than you'd think at first glance. The eyes and baby voice misleading. The boy could talk earnestly about things with intelligence. He had a sense of humor. He laughed at himself – he wanted to enter theatre, such a Disney fan he was. A dream to sing in their movies, to dance in one of their motion pictures as the new Fred Astaire, a Fantasia sequel perhaps and if not, to become an artist, for he loved design.

Thomas could have listened as if he didn't believe Kurt, for the aspirations were high despite being more realistic than those of others his age, Noah himself wishing to be a "bonerologist", "an alcoholic spine surgeon" or a "fire truck", but he'd sat close listening as if trying to believe and Kurt was grateful for such kindness, was comfortable with the man. Had been anxious at first when Thomas had placed his hand on his shoulder as part of a friendly gesture, but had gradually grown accustomed to it. The way he supposed they were here in California. Even if Mr. Puckerman was Texan. To Thomas such childlike fussiness was touching, he recognized it as a trait similar to those he'd seen in Elizabeth. Oh how they were so alike.

There now came Noah around the corner on running feet, still in his wet suit since dried and immediately taking in the sight of his friend and father talking, laughing quietly even and looking all cosy sharing the same bath mat, his father in fact awfully close to Kurt that had him approaching all the faster. _I see you dad, trying to act all nice so as to steal my friend away when I ditched him which I know I'm a douche for doing and I suck pizza meatballs but he's mine. Go make your own friend._ He came to stand in front of them with a permission request, that could both he and Kurt "go hang out and play beach volleyball with the rest of the awesome Kidtopia crew", yet it was a request granted only if they were to stay where Thomas could see them.

With the zip undone at the back and peeled off to reveal Noah in short trunks, it was the boy's own request that Kurt help rub sunblock on his back that had Kurt much surprised, though ever the obedient child he was, even to Noah, he came to position himself behind his friend only to slow when starting, the look of his hands upon Noah's back, for yes, indeed, Noah's skin had a very healthy tan to it, and yes, his own skin was "classic pale", but to see them coming together like this, touching, like an ice cream to a giant furnace, to have a tawny tan so heated it bubbled the sunblock like grease under those burning fingertips as fair as the innocence within Kurt. _For outwardly, I was innocently composed, smiling like I loved it. Inside, I was screaming._

"We don't have to play just beach volleyball you know, Madison brought Twister Beach Mat and a couple of rackets we can use. And Joe has this Waboba Ball that skims and bounces along the water, it's totally cool." Noah's voice, Kurt now realizing the boy had been speaking all this time, whilst he had not uttered a single word. "Kurt? Kurt what do you think?" Asked Noah, turning to him as he blinked in response.

"Do we have to play with them Noah? I thought it was going to be just us together."

"Yeah but they've got all the games, dude. Come on, it'll be fun," encouraged Noah, yet with Kurt's withdrawing body, he leaned in with a smirk. "I might cause another stampede of yuck babes and swamp monkeys. Now who doesn't want to see that shit go down."

From beside them, Thomas said sternly, "Language Noah. You're not going to have people chase you just to see the way their bodies move independently from their main frame. You were lucky to come out alive the first time."

"Totally. So, Gay Jane, are you in?" Asked Noah with hopeful eyes now on his friend, yet one with a face caught in distance thought, saying, "You know, instead of being her, I think I'll be… Jack."

Noah was now the one to blink. "Jack?"

Amusedly scoffing his answer, Kurt replied, "Well I'm not going to be Clayton now am I. He's evil, and I'm way too young to be Professor Porter."

Noah was shaking his head as if he was trying to clear it, saying, "Yeah, but there is no Jack in the movie is there."

"No, but it makes sense this way. Noah, just because you put gay in front of a name doesn't turn them into a boy. Jane is still a girl, so I think I'll make a new character up myself, Jack. What do you think?" Smiled Kurt as he continued in fuelled fervor. "Jack, the long lost brother of Tarzan who comes in search of him from England where they reunite where their parents died and they're like ,"your mom was named "mom", my mom was named "mom", dude, don't freak out, but I think we're related."

"But I like calling you my Gay Jane, it suits you. Suits you more than 'Jack'," protested Noah through a muttered pout that had his eyes lowering to the sand he soon picked at restlessly, as if something he liked very much had been confiscated from him.

Frowning, Kurt now asked, "How does it suit me more? I'm not a gir-"

His words, however, were cut off by Noah's utterances, under the breath, repeating the name on his rolling tongue over and over as if tasting it. "Gay Jack… nope, not feeling it, bro."

"No, not Gay Jack, Noah, just Jack. Why do I have to be gay in this?" Asked Kurt irritably as Noah himself protested, "Tarzan's gay in this too, Kurt. How do you think we're supposed to get together in the end? Plus we're total gay bros anyway with our wristbands on, see. Pride for the win."

Kurt ignored the way Noah had extended his wristband clad wrist out to him, asking in bemusement. "Whoever said anything about getting together? We're just playing around as friends, and you hate romance."

"I do hate romance, but only when they put in it movies like Godzilla," explained Noah, nodding. "I mean its okay if the chick grabs the dude's waist, slips her hand in his pocket and steals his wallet. She doesn't even kiss him, just runs. That's cool, but it's the feelings that always get in the way you know, when he's looking into her eyes, she's looking into his, and all I'm doing is throwin' popcorn at their faces, and I don't want to be throwing popcorn, I want to be eating it, 'cause popcorn's tasty."

"See, how is playing Tarzan any less action filled than a monster film? Romance would still get in the way," argued Kurt to Noah's shaking head.

"Yeah, but Tarzan's a Disney movie dude, and Disney movies always have a love story in them. That's where romance can actually work, and Phil Collins and can sing about you being in his heart and stuff."

Frowning, the fair boy asserted. "But you don't like that song either."

Noah paused, though his eyes never strayed from Kurt's own. "For you I can."

"Really?" Asked Kurt, flattered and surprised as Noah grinned, "Sure, the song's not that bad, _you'll be in my heart, yes, you'll be in my heart." _He was singing now, and singing for Kurt. _"From this day on, now and forever more. You'll be in my heart. No matter what they say. You'll be here in my heart, always_… because there's no escape, got it? Once you're in my heart, you're stuck in there until the constant beating will blender you up into a milkshake, and that kids, is where love juice comes from."

"Tell me you won't sing the song like that when you play this game with your friends back home," sighed Kurt, suppressing a smile that surfaced with giggles as Noah replied, "I won't sing, period, and I wouldn't play Tarzan without you either. Godzilla or the Justice League I could play with my Dallas homies, but a game we made up together? Nah. It just wouldn't be the same."

Kurt was touched, but suggested anyway, "Or you could play it with it an actual girl as Jane. See how that works out."

"No, they'd wanna be a Disney princess than a totally radical explorer dally like Jane, not that I'd let them play as Jane, 'cause there's only one Tarzan, me, and one Gay Jane…"

Bringing his hand swiftly up, Noah awaited that pale palm against his own, the "Tarzan Touch" he called it, now awaiting Kurt to say, "… me."

The boy beamed. "Exactly. We can totally make romance badass Kurt, just you and me. So what do you say? Wanna ditch this Jack dude and come play with us as my Gay Jane again?"

To Thomas, all this talk of homoeroticism amidst a Tarzan game of all things had come out in such a flood of words, it had dazed him, for only moments ago had Kurt himself looked faint from the prospect of playing with those other children, that sickish sensation he could tell that rose up from the soles of his feet as if there was a tremor in the earth, to touching palms with Kurt now as his son's 'Gay Jane', and his son adamant on that name despite it being indeed nonsensical in such context. And the singing! His son never sang publicly, never sang such songs. And the pride wristbands! Apparel he'd questioned him about upon catching sight of it on his wrist earlier that morning, allegedly a gift from Elizabeth, for of course she knew of this.

Remembering, now thinking back to when he had seen both boys in play, the way his son had held Kurt's hand in his, had pulled him in, a hand always around him for protection. The way his son would speak as enthusiastically of Kurt as he had done after watching Godzilla, would look at him like a brand new ride opened at a theme park, his spontaneous, animated behavior around this fair boy so unlike the way he'd seen with any other friend from back home. Yet it was all innocent, really. His wife would assure him of this. That things were never the way they looked to outside eyes, and to Thomas, he supposed they'd played like any other normal kids, just like they were now as Noah led Kurt over to join the other children.

From beach volleyball to cricket to playing catch, many thought it was easy to laugh at this pale boy Noah had invited along. The way he would fumble about on the sand's uneven surface, with his swimming briefs (some believed had been ironed), slipping occasionally when he'd fall, to the way he would stand on the edge of a game and try desperately to remember every one of these kids names instead of excusing himself all the time with a pat to their shoulders, not that he did it often. This Californian crowd that Noah fit so well in, a crowd good looking enough to model for the Abercrombie & Fitch kids catalog, such self-confident kids envied and praised and adulated from kindergarten, and then there was little Kurt from nowhere.

Some speculated after his femininity for he wasn't boyish at all; sounded like a girl, face like a girl's. He tried to use the same surf lingo they used, but he'd either it use incorrectly much to their amusement or use words and grammatical phrases that had them exchanging looks. He had a little stammer too that he'd try to push past at their snickers, an eagerness in his body to vainly befriend them like an electric current that couldn't be shut off and must've left him exhausted, but whenever the center of attention in the game and he'd hesitate as if he was a on high diving board summoning the courage to dive, often costing his team the point, as if they weren't already trying to crush him with a word, a glance or even the hint of a sneer.

Yet there it was again, Thomas could plainly see, his son always as close to Kurt as he could get when the games allowed him, occasionally competing against each other on different teams, but not stopping Noah from offering the boy the thumbs up when the latter would glance and smile at him in that hopeful way when he did good, ignored by the others but never by Noah. Protected by his son when the kids would get impatient with him, wishing to punish him even with positions furthest away from the center, or even the entire game, his fair hand snatched up with Noah showing off both their "wicked" pride wristbands, Tarzan defending his "Gay Jane" from the pack of gorillas who couldn't accept him, couldn't accept the "freak".

_My mom would tell me once I'd recounted that afternoon to her that if I should ever marry anyone, may it be to someone like Noah, someone who would protect me in my time of need, someone who would go out of their way to help me even if took them beyond their time. I knew I didn't belong with those kids, no matter how hard I tried to make them like me. I wasn't what they wanted; my insides didn't match my outside, but God damn did I devastate them when Noah chose me over them. They couldn't have made themselves laugh at me then any more than the thought of death as he'd grabbed me and stormed away, and the more he held onto me like I was something precious, the less I cared for anyone on that beach who didn't want me. _

**.**

**Glee**

**.**

_Hey there cutes, put on your dancin' boots and come dance with me  
Come dance with me, what an evening for some Terpsichore  
Pretty face, I know a swingin' place, come on dance with me  
Romance with me on a crowded floor…_

An outdoor dance night for all guests staying at the Hotel Del Coronado that evening, starting promptly at seven-thirty, ending at midnight, and an event Elizabeth was keen for all of them to attend after dinner, her words "we have to go" said as easily as pitching headfirst through a pane of glass. She'd paused on their return to their suite at the lobby desk to inquire for more information and to purchase tickets she later spread in her hand and fanned playfully in Kurt's face as they resumed the way back to their room, tickling his little nose, the fair boy laughing and squealing as he tried to swipe at them like a piece of string dangling over a playing kitten belly up on its back, before finally arriving with preparation thrown in an antic slapstick rhythm.

Kurt was to adjust his clothes by his bed, the red polo shirt, baby blue shorts, and citrus yellow jumper tied loosely around his waist, all while his tiger looked on from its position on his pillow and all to his mother's humming tune of Herbert Stothart and Harry Ruby's "I Wanna Be Loved By You", for he knew the song. He had seen the film 'Some Like It Hot' and had heard Marilyn Monroe's famous rendition a couple days before they'd left for California. Marilyn, as Sugar Kane Kovalchick of Sweet Sue's Society Syncopaters, the dazzling-blond ukulelist, the female body, buttocks, breasts, fleeing male saxophonists and pursued by their saxophones and not able to resist again and again, the men loving her for it, to not get enough of that hot ukulele.

His mother was cooing Marilyn-esque under her breath, cooing to the mirror's reflection of her husband winking at her from his seat on the bed as he adjusted his canvas yachting shoes, to cooing to Kurt with her full lips atop a body now dressed in a coral blossom tie-waist dress, the plunging V-neck and dolman sleeves so lightweight and drapey looking above the shape-cinching wrap waist that highlighted her feminine silhouette, a dress that promised moves on the dance floor, may even have changed her voice as she sang, the key rising to a higher pitch. The faint, breathy noises as if not knowing what they were and meant with Burt having to wrap his arm around her as if she'd twirl away, and she'd only had two glasses of wine at dinner.

The oval Windsor lawn, positioned west from the hotel and only a short distance away from the main building, had since completely transformed into a garden themed dance, a secret garden belonging to a sprawling mansion many years old. The white Edwardian pergola band stand, balustraded in grey stone erected at one end with square faux stone panels resembling a slabbed patio on the ground, polished to reflect every light bulb and lantern sparkling like glass ornaments. Small potted flowers amongst cherub statues to Victorian glasshouse like plants, Parisian café woven chairs and tables for those resting by the side lines and all fully encircled by a tall garden trellis, wisteria hanging of it as if like flowered grapes ripe for the picking.

To every beholder, it was a sight of wonder and beauty, the garden scented with an odour of secrecy and mystery. Kurt had to blink sharply from amid the blaze of lights, ears pricking amid the band playing the fifties pop songs of Frank Sinatra to the rock and roll tunes of the King, music so loud and so well known, you felt your heart kick into its rhythm, bodies following suit. Little boys like Kurt had to be careful, sticking close to his parents so as not to be jostled from people pushing from behind in the cue, yet now entering the crowded dance and searching for a table. Conversation, amplified voices, and laughter, the music ending and up into the next song, one perhaps more up-tempo so you had to breathe more quickly just to keep up.

For Burt, a scotch. For his mother, a fizzy fruity prom-girl drink in a tall frosted glass with a straw, milkshake like, the near neon like liquid resembling those brightly colored alcoholic drinks Kurt had once seen at the bar, yet for him, a bottle of Hubert's old –fashioned raspberry lemonade as he observed through big blue eyes, couples sliding on the dance floor, some careening into others with music taking them back to the Swing era when U.S. army servicemen came to dance with their girls before going off to fight the Japs . "Come Dance With Me" – "Something's Gotta Give" - "All The Way". There was always dancing. A heated, festive confluence of smells, people clapping amongst flashing cameras. "I Could Have Danced All Night."

The band, a Dance Band of players dressed smartly in suits, continued to play and play loudly, and to this, Kurt's woven chair creaked from light bouncing, the dancer within him struck into movement, now pausing as his mother took his hand and whisked him away onto the dance floor where they danced close. She knew her son was shy dancing "close". Even touching proved uncomfortable. Had been an issue when it had come to certain positions in ballet that he'd tried to overcome but couldn't, yet with her, it was different. Kurt danced with his eyes sometimes open, sometimes shut tight as if hypnotized, soon a gem like glisten on both their skins, _the same skin, we shared the same skin_, fair mother and child on the dance floor.

Then it was Burt's turn with Kurt, taking his son's hand in his own once the boy had slipped off his Lottie sandals for his heels and toes by now were aching, and onto the dance floor again for round two. There he lifted Kurt to stand barefooted on his shoes like the child he was and to dance like that, a number of women unknown to them giving them looks of endearment, their eyes soft, Elizabeth's own blue eyes soft as she looked on proudly, now breaking sight as with a sudden _tap, tap, tap_ on the shoulder, she turned around to see Noah and Thomas standing behind her grinning. "Hey, Mrs H." Now asking permission to join them, for there were no more tables around, and drawing up two spare chairs as she answered nodding, "of course!"

A mere four hours it had been since they'd last seen each other, a wave goodbye once they'd escorted Kurt back to his suite shortly after three, yet here were their familiar friendly faces with them again, the waitress scuttling off with Thomas's order for a brandy and Noah beside him, dressed smartly casual in a navy blazer, a striped tee of cherry red, white and blue, beige shorts and a searching head shifting irritably to catch sight of Kurt and Burt on the dance floor, for damn was it packed as the song ended, applause like swirls of sonic confetti descending on both father and son as the fair boy hurried to him upon sight. His Gay Jane, flushed from dance and coming to sit beside him as he downed his lemonade, eyes bright blue and smiling.

"Noah, I didn't know you were coming to this," said Kurt amidst the curt cheek kissing greetings of their parents next to them as Noah nodded.

"Yeah, I was the one to get my dad to buy the tickets. I mean look at that dance floor, dude. You could fit like fifty Dance Dance Revolutions on it and that's some big ass platform I needs to be getting my groove on."

Kurt was quick to widen his smile as he raised a challenging brow. "I don't know. Will you be able to dance as well without the arrows?"

"I can dance plenty good without arrows. I've outgrown them like a pro. I don't need an arcade telling me how to move this body. Bow Chicka Wow Wow," grooved Noah as Kurt asked. "How can you still move your body? You wore yourself out from all that surfing."

Another hour in fact that had left the wet boy collapsing on the beach mat beside him as he replied. "Ever heard of a power nap to power on through? 'Cause I power napped the fudge out of my bed to come out to this sweet dig."

"Why is it called a 'power' nap?" Asked Kurt with a frown, his head cocked to the side as if Noah was an adult, those big blue eyes looking up at him and making him feel older than he was, a question asked with a hope that its answer would just be extraordinary as the fair boy continued. "My teacher said it's similar to the way the world calls girls insecure but then they sell "manly yogurt" because boys can't eat yogurt unless the package is black and has the word "POWER" on it in big letters."

"I didn't call it a power nap to make myself 'manlier', it's just what they say," shrugged Noah. "If I wanted to be manlier then would have slept outside on the gravel with a rock for a pillow and no blanket 'cause I want to catch hyperthermia like that. Beat up anyone who calls me 'cute', and eat a sheet of metal for dinner and not care that it would screw up my insides 'cause I have zero feelings. I literally can't feel anything 'cause I'm actually a robot with an iron hide meters long so I can't move."

"And you like the sound of that?" Asked Kurt as Noah replied, "It sounds badass sure, but it's totally stupid. I'd nap any day in a bed than on the ground, and I'd make it extra comfy too with a blanket made of that cashmere wool stuff your mom told me yours was made out of. Seriously, if you're not using it, could I borrow it sometime? Like tonight, and maybe the night after that, and maybe every single night after that for the rest of my freakin' life. Okay you're just gonna have to give it me."

"Why don't you just come over for a sleep over? Then you can have as much time with my blanket as you want, as long as you aren't naked under it," replied Kurt, shuffling in his chair as if the idea of it made him uncomfortable, with Noah glancing over at Burt and Elizabeth as he asked in hushed tones.

"Will your folks be okay with that? And if your mom padlocks the balcony doors and tells me I can't go anywhere near them, I'll totally understand."

Kurt now exclaimed, "You told her?"

"Kinda," grinned Noah with boyish repentance. "My main goals when at a friend's house are usually to the pet dog if they have one, to avoid the folks and to not clog the toilets, but when I'm sleepy, I'll do the exact opposite of those things. I might even put a pancake on your sister's head to keep her warm and safe… oh that reminds me, I gotta get my flip flops back from the garden."

Kurt now smiled assuredly. "I'm sure they will let you stay over, Noah. We're leaving early for Legoland anyway."

"Legoland? You're inviting me over for a sleepover just so I can watch you ditch me for Legoland?" Asked Noah disbelievingly as Kurt frowned.

"What? No I-"

"I wanna go to Legoland!" Cut off the fair boy was by his friend's sudden outburst, near frenzied as Noah's voice raised itself upon every word, his hands now clutched on Kurt's armrests. "I mean, I like Legoland. You like Legoland. I like thing. You like thing. Friendship, but where's the friendship gone, Kurt? Where did we go wrong?!"

"No silly, you're coming with us to Legoland for the day," assured Kurt as Noah paused.

"I am? Neat." And like that, the boy relaxed back into his chair, smiling as Kurt spoke, "I was meant to ask you sooner at the beach but I guess I forgot."

Noah scoffed. "Dude, how can you forget to ask me to come with you to Legoland? It's literally that one place that's a land made from bricks that have holes in them to connect them to other bricks that are actually Lego, 'cause its freakin' Legoland bro!"

"I know, I'm sorry. I guess after what happened with your friends must have-,"

Noah scoffed again, this time with disdain near to frothing at his lips. "Pfft, they're not my friends. They were just a bunch of pro-bros and chicks who followed me around when I arrived here like they didn't know what to do with themselves."

Kurt's eyes widened as if it were a secret the boy had just revealed unto him, a question, an assertion arising. "Really? But you were so up for playing with them on the beach."

"I was up for playing with their games, not them," corrected Noah with a glance over at the crowded dance floor. "Otherwise what else is there apart from hearing 'em talk like they're Cali's when really some of 'em are just a bunch of Okies. At least I admit I'm Texan. Full blooded Dallas cowboys' fan-boy here."

Kurt soon frowned as he now asked with calculative hesitation. "Then why do you speak more Surf lingo than you do Texan? To me you don't even have that much of a southern accent."

"It's stronger when at I'm home, but out here it changes and 'cause I come to Cali every year for the holidays, it comes out naturally. I can also tell who's a real Cali and who the fakes are, like those beach kids," replied Noah, eyeing once again the guests.

"If you wanna be friends with their kind, you have to be a butt hole. Not a full blown butthole because that's no fun for 'em, and if you're not a butt hole at all then that won't work either. A half way butt hole. Those are their kind of peeps."

"But you're not a butt hole. To me you're not… well, at first you were, but not now. Great, now you've got me saying words like 'butt hole'. Oh no," sighed Kurt into his little lap, Noah's face now softening.

"See Kurt, no wonder they didn't like you. You're just too cute. So cute I wanna kiss your cute stupid face and cuddle the shizzle outta you and hold your fudging hand and I hate you 'cause I don't think I've ever said cute so many times in a sentence before… and I think I'm starting to like it."

"You really hate me for that?" Asked Kurt naively as Noah exclaimed amusedly, "No, I don't hate you. God Kurt, how are you so cute? You should be tested so they can put your cuteness into snuggle toys that smell like fruit or something, you'd make scientists everywhere blush."

Kurt smiled. "I think you're cute, Noah."

"Stop, you're making me blush," chuckled the boy, now mimicking girlish coquetry as Kurt insisted as if he was failing to put his point across, shifting closer.

"No, I really do think so."

"I think you're eyes make me shy… and stuff," smiled Noah.

"I think… you're a mega-ripper... Did I use that right?" Asked Kurt, the surf lingo term for "great surfer" nodded by Noah as he spoke.

"I think you're as cute as a sensitive chest raisin…. It's a nipple, but I thought you'd think it was a bad word, so I made up another name for it just for you… and stuff."

Kurt laughed. "I think you were really brave standing up to those kids for me."

Noah paused. "I think… when I fart, my willy goes hard."

"What?" Kurt's laughter was soon to gasp as Noah was quick to rectify.

"I mean, you give me a boner. Not a willy boner, but a boner in my heart, a heart on, an affection erection."

The fair boy asked, leaning forward. "Is that what a boner is? A hard dinky doo?"

"Yeah, if you touch it a little it goes all hard, and sometimes it goes hard without being touched," nodded Noah as Kurt shuffled even closer to the edge of the seat as if sitting on eggshells.

"Really? And you have one in your heart for me?"

"Yep. Tarzan wants to frickin' hold Gay Jane's hand so hard it's gonna blow his mind with how hecka rad his affection erection is," pronounced Noah proudly as Kurt pondered the action.

"I don't think Tarzan and Jane ever held hands in the movie."

"They should've. Holding hands is totally punk rock," replied Noah matter of factly as he now put on his best cop impression. "Stop! This is the police; you're under arrest for being too cute. Now put your hands where I can hold them… like this."

And like that, Kurt's hand was taken up in Noah's, taken up to his lips for a peck on the back, a smile so satisfied on the boy's lips, Kurt too, only to tense upon sight of those beach kids on the dance floor, sighing, "Oh no, they're here."

Noah followed his gaze, roaming his eyes over them as one might eye something ridiculous. "Yeah, and look how bad they're dancing. Boo! Get outta here!"

"Shh, Noah!" Protested Kurt, shaking Noah's hand to cease. "Other people will think you're booing them."

"Come on Gay Jane, let's show 'em how it's done," encouraged Noah, standing and pulling Kurt up with him, or trying to. The fair boy remained planted in his chair as if his buttocks were glued to the seat, a prank the kids would find funny no doubt, their hands trickling in the stuff as they'd tauntingly smile at their work, Kurt protesting.

"No they'll just laugh at me like they did on the beach, and their laughter is actually really pretty sounding. There's not a single seal bark amongst any of them."

"Your laugh is prettier, Kurt, like baby angels and peanut butter chocolate. Why do you think I try so hard to be funny all the time?" Replied Noah as Kurt frowned from blushing cheeks.

"How can you say that? You made me eat a marshmallow because it reminded you of how your classroom hamster eats."

The other boy chuckled. "Because you eat really cute that's why. Every little nibble you took, it hurt my heart."

An idea forming in mind, Kurt innocently asked, "Is it cute if I say 'nibble'?"

"Yeah, but don't say it again 'cause nibble's a cute word, and when you say it, it even looks like you're nibbling. So it's doubly cute," answered Noah looking down to view the inevitable forming on those red lips.

"Nibble."

"Stop it, dude."

"Yum-Yum."

"Ah no, my affection erection, it's growing too big for my heart."

"Cuddle-butt."

"Stop! Before you kill me with cuteness," pleaded Noah laughing with a hand clasped to Kurt's mouth, but retracted upon the fair boy's little tongue lapping his palm.

"Kurt, I promise you they won't laugh, I swear on my swag," assured Noah as Kurt's former face of tease morphed into one of fear.

"No, not the swag, Noah. You love your swag. You said the wheels of your school bus go swag, swag, swag just because you're on it."

Noah smiled as he now raised Kurt onto his feet, fair little bare feet he soon matched as he quickly kicked off his sneakers, wriggled his toes for air and spoke. "And tonight, it's gonna make us swag swingin' kings of that dance floor, baby."

It was like the opening of a sudden dance scene in a Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire movie, except with the burst of rock and roll music, "Stuck on You" – "Suspicious Minds" – "Heartbreak Hotel". Kurt was being pulled through the outer shell of gaily dancing couples, careful not to have his feet impaled with the heels of unsteady pumps, weaving in and out, all the pushing that scared him, and all the while gripping hard to Noah as they reached the more spacious middle of the floor, like the soft gooey center of a Turkish Delight, though soured by this group of kids, more like a gang with "the look" in their eyes giving away they'd been abandoned by Noah, that they hadn't "worked out" for him as friends, and they weren't going to forgive.

Did the swaggering king give a damn? _Getting in-between me and Kurt now. _Did they think he really gave a damn? _Encircling me and him in separate circles. _Their was almost to yawn and stroll away in interest immediately lost, perhaps cough, burp, even absentmindedly tug at his crotch in their direction as if he were alone and unobserved and wishing to get rid of a pain in the butt itch that didn't know when to quit, trouble making itches that ought to have been yanked from the floor by their parents who would vigorously shake and cuff them, to send them to their rooms and luckily no one would take notice, or if they did, they would give no sign, the spotlight on two boys coming together to dance with one another. "Burning Love."

No more of those kids with their barriers broken, barged through and pushed, the group like measly bowling pins as Noah had reached Kurt, one girl on the floor from an elbow to the back, another going off to "tell on them" from a pinch to the "sensitive chest raisin", but through this haze of excitement, roaring in the ears, with everyone's mood so merry, frantic even, it was hard to care as the kids dispersed, Noah and Kurt now the only ones left. For it was their turn to dance, their turn to laugh in delight with everyone else on the floor a mere blur like agitated water. They were the kids of the evening performing their terrific little moves to Elvis, Kurt as energetic as a spitfire on his floaty feet with Noah's face gleaming like a car hubcap.

They were to dance long and hard until their bones creaked and joints ached, until their skin was oven baked hot, chests panting and only pausing for a bathroom break when Kurt had squirmed from the pressure to pee so strong from his earlier lemonade it had hurt him trying to hold it in to dance even longer with Noah, a hurt as sharp as a needle in between his legs. Yet Noah had joined him, Kurt laughing as the other boy peed loudly for "dominance" and so relieved Kurt was afterwards that he let Noah hold him on the dance floor, not pushing him away gently when he was too close, but sinking into him as they'd swayed to softer songs, and right up again to jitterbug, tango and even hula like native Hawaiians to those with beat.

_It was the best night I think we ever had there. My swag everywhere, Kurt with me, and I swear I drank so much lemonade it shot out of my nose. I also lost my pride wristband on the floor when in mid move and we were there searchin' for some time where I totally lost my cool until we found it, or moreover Kurt found it. I saw my dad dancing with Mrs H, and I saw Mr H eying me and Kurt with a wink, as both of us by the end when the chairs were stacked, the band gone and the floor clear of people, were skidding across it on our feet as well as on our stomachs like baby penguins, singing the tunes of the night all the way back to the suite. Sure thing, the whole dance was a total ba roos, just me and Kurt, and I liked it that way. We both did._

* * *

**~ PLEASE REVIEW ~**

(But if you wish to criticize, may it be constructive. I'm not going to learn from my mistakes and improve if you vent.)

**Disclaimer:** I do not own the rights to the characters from Glee as I don't own the show. I'm not earning money from this and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.  
**  
~ STAY TUNED FOR MORE BY FOLLOWING/FAVORITING ~**


	5. The Promise

**THE CHILD  
**_2001_

**V**

**~ The Promise ~**

The two boys that day, early morning, early wake up and en route to Carlsbad, north of Coronado, a decent forty minutes away by road from the hotel. They played The Licence Plate Game, Who's Closest and Word Chain, all with smiles, bouts of laughter, and the coach driven with the usual skill typical of a school bus driver with perhaps just an air of just-restrained mayhem to get to his destination as quickly as possible without having to hear playground songs about his vehicle's wheels, but this particular bus driver seemingly as excited as his passengers, thumping the steering wheel to whistled melodies and so spontaneously you'd swear he'd just that instant remembered the song after minutes of trying to recall how the tune went.

Such a buzzing coach, near full to capacity with other shiny faces of joyous children peering over the seats of those in front to see through the windscreen, only to complain for the toilet as their straining seat belts squeezed down on their bladders, the need to pee! The impatient cries of "are we there yet?!" In the middle of the fray, the two boys, sitting together with Kurt by the window dressed in an azure polo and pumpkin orange shorts, Noah, a 1975 California Surf Crew Printed tee of a much lighter blue and purple army cargos, their little flip flopped and Lottie sandaled feet often grazing the other's by the carefree swinging of their legs as with bodies turned inward and close, they spoke excitedly with bright faces so animated, so alive.

Often Noah, set in playful mood, would lightly tease with the odd flick of the fair ear, the nuzzling of his cheek against Kurt's, the smell of his breath the scent of morning staleness mixed with sweetish staleness like rotted wisteria if not for breakfast food earlier that morning. Even the puckering of his lips for a kiss that the fair boy would laugh off and right into a tumble as he and Noah would wrestle in their seats, awkward positions, squeamish struggling, often pinned by the arms, but those lips skimming just over the eyelid, the brow bone, the nose, but never on the lips, the suction much needed to leave behind that warm squelching moist kiss never made contact to Kurt's victory as Noah would launch himself at him once again for the-

Up ahead! And pointed out by Noah in mid wrestle from a mere fleeting glance out the window, a shouting "there it is!" as if signalling everyone on their sailing vessel for land from the crow's nest, there it was indeed, every young face pressed up against the glass now so foggy from condensation left from their rapid breathing they had to wipe at it furiously and just in time to see the theme park's sign stop before them as they rolled to a holt, 'Legoland California.' A park recently opened two years ago in March, the first Legoland in America and the third to be opened in the world after those in Britain, and already so popular, boasting three roller coasters, seven water attractions with a total of twenty one rides. This was gonna be awesome!

Storage compartments were emptied, the center aisle now a swarming sight of passengers hurrying to the exit with children squashed in-between, their faces muffled, arms wailing as if trying to catch breath with the sight akin to a slaughtering house meat line as out from the air conditioned coach and into the swamping twenty-one degree heat they escaped, right into the near stunted looking ticket lines. Last to exit the coach with a parting "thank you" to the nodding driver, the Hummel parents steered both boys off to the side and into the shade of a nearby fern tree, there to collect themselves and to set down clear instructions to them as to what to do if either one of them were to get lost, lost in this kingdom of Lego men and their bricks.

Pah! Brushed off by such childish confidence. They would not get lost, these two boys on an adventure, their own adventure, as from his teddy bear backpack, Kurt brought out the park's map they'd obtained back at the hotel desk, unfolding each section to reveal brightly colored lines along the pathways left by crayon, the blue lines squiggly, harshly drawn, evidently left from Noah's hand in comparison to Kurt's, pink, so much more focused, and applied with much lighter pressure, with each attraction fluorescent numbered in order and resembling very much a child's coloring maze, starting from the gates and off on a route both boys it appeared had thoroughly discussed the previous night under torch light, every step calculated.

_They wouldn't even show Burt and I their map at first, one so large it could have covered them like a blanket and one so "top secret" it held more confidentiality than a government document, but eventually they let us in, presenting it as if in a school show and tell as I smiled openly. Kurt was just so happy to have Noah with him here, and Noah too couldn't help but grab his attention in enthusiastic urgency upon sight of something, both joined at the hip as they'd bounce in excitement in the ticket line, and I didn't want to interrupt that. For Kurt had never before had a friend like Noah to invite out to a park. The spare ride seat next to him would always be empty, but not today. Today, my son would have someone to raise his hands with to the sky._

Now, with tickets finally bought and the speeding pace was set, Noah and Kurt sprinting from the park's spinning turnstiles like marathon runners launched by the pistol's _bang!_ And into the park! Their bodies like wind-up toys wound up enough to break their little clockwork motors all you were left with was the key and a puff of dust. Young bodies that would only pause to check the map as if seeking lost buried treasure, and off again! There was no chance for a breather, for you had to be as young as they were or lose them. As young as their legs were that raced so quickly Noah was to grow frustrated from his flips flops constantly flying off his feet that into his own back park he stuffed them in, and only taking them out to board the rides.

Dino Island! Duplo Village! Pirate Shores! The sound systems dotted and hidden in the foliage were playing Aqua as Kurt would fret at the sight of height restriction boards before ride entrances, his own height of four foot one that he'd attempt to tip toe up to reach the caricature's elevated palm indeed barring him from some Noah himself, with his height of four foot nine, was able to board, not he did without Kurt, a shrugging "total bogus looking ride anyway" as he'd check the map to the next with Kurt looking at him so grateful and so beholden to his friend, he'd hug Noah tightly, creasing the map but careful not to step on those bare feet reddened from running, smiling for Noah, and laughing his baby angel laugh he knew he'd like.

Land of Adventure! Fun Town! Castle Hill! Occasionally both of them would stumble into mascots and pose funnily next to them, "Hold that look, boys!" And _flash_! Noah would search for the seam into the costume to poke at the actor within, with Kurt pitying them, no doubt a sweating mess inside as off they'd run to marvel at the life sized Lego statues of dinosaurs, of safari animals, even dragons that Noah would climb and ride like a lasso throwing cowboy, barely suppressing the urge to act like Godzilla when viewing mini New York City, smashing buildings and eating civilians with he and Kurt crashing their Lego cars as recklessly as Mario Kart racers at the Volvo Driving School, completely disregarding their promotion for "safe driving."

Miniland USA! Imagination Zone! Water Park! They lunched on burgers and ice cream, eating on the grass and there to pose for photographs as they chewed noisily, Noah's open smile displaying cheese stained teeth with a shaka waving hand, Kurt's, bright eyed with skin so luminous from perspiration he was like a doll left in the road on a summer's day, the plastic melting in the muggy heat, and heat hot enough to bubble the asphalt, but now so cool as into their swimming gear and right into the water park they splashed, sloshing through the pools, drenching themselves in water gun sprays shooting high into the air like elephant trunks jetting water, and the slides! The rafts! The soakers! All permeating their skin to leave no stretch untouched.

Five in the afternoon with hair still damp and clothes splotched in patches left from improper drying and favorite rides were quickly revisited, yet avoiding those that rotated like carousels for Noah had previously staggered clutching his stomach from one earlier only to retch dangerously near to the mini Lego White House, with a nursing time of only ten minutes on a nearby bench before he'd jumped right back again. The lines too were not as long as they had been earlier, but long enough to have Kurt forming Noah's slick hair into a miniature quiff to pass the time, a look posed with Elvis's signature smirk before it was restyled into little spiked Mohawk, a now punkish looking Elvis as Noah took hold of Kurt's hand with suave and onto the ride.

_My hand would be imprinted with Noah's own in the flesh. It would even smell like it, the smell of chlorine from the water and rancid burger cheese for he'd always take it, would always pull me along like a steroid fueled Olympian competing in every event, for Jesus was he one excited boy, like a puppy, in such a state of "cowabunga" happiness for a day so "coolophonic", so "cooleoleol", he'd start spurting surf lingo terms until his sentences no longer made sense, well, to my parents anyway, but I knew he was enjoying this "dope" day, and "dope" because of me. I was the "dope" to him as Lego was to Legoland, and Lego was everything here. Not that I thought I was everything to Noah, not that he now favored me to such an extent… d-did he? _

Through the revolving turnstiles and under the park's sign, there they all finally came to sit under the same fern tree they had when they'd arrived, though the shadows flickering across the primary colored ground akin to playground markings were now cast at a different angle, the sun traveled further west in the sky from the late hour as all of them lounged in the shade, waiting for the remaining passengers of their coach before the return to the hotel. Yet the boys were far from bored as they entertained themselves with what they'd bought from their souvenir raid earlier, their back packs chock full to explode with Noah fighting Lego key ring figurines with his kingdom dragon sword and shield to reach Kurt and his bottle of "holy" water.

"What makes this water "holy"? It's just water in a bottle," Kurt asserted as Noah took it from him, saying, "Not if you do this."

Uncapping the lid, the boy upturned the bottle over his head, water drenching his hair and face, now chuckling as he spoke. "Ooh yeah, that's the stuff. Any water in this heat is holy, just like any bread in the Antarctica is Jesus, so when you've lost your leg to frostbite or cannibal Eskimos, you'll grow a new Jesus leg, even a Jesus sandal if you eat enough of him."

"That makes no sense," protested Kurt, taking back his bottle as Noah gestured to his body.

"Maybe not, but your water has sure made me holy cool over here." Smiling reluctantly, Kurt looked at his bottle. "I think I'll put pink dye in it next time, call it 'Unicorn Tears'."

"What would that be? Poison?"

"No. Perfume, and because of all the candy you've had me eating lately, my blood's sure to have at least five pounds of sugar in it, just the thing to put on pancakes. That I'll call 'Angel Cholesterol.'"

"Really?" Noah asked as Kurt nodded in keen avidity.

"Yeah, it would look like good cholesterol but would spread like bad cholesterol. I'd probably have to brand it as 'Angel Juice' for it to get past the type two diabetes health protesters, but yeah, I'd claim the blood would be from fresh squeezed angel."

With a hand wiping down his dripping face Noah smiled, saying, "you could use a spiked torture cage to get it, the same The Blood Countess used."

Kurt frowned. "What Blood Countess?"

"She was like some Dracula lady in Europe who went around killing girls for their blood, but instead of sucking it, she bathed in it to keep her young."

Kurt's face appeared sickened, asking, "Did it work?"

"If the girls were "pure"," answered Noah with his fingers quoted in the air as Kurt listened on. "Like if they didn't have cooties or something, but just think if she'd been able to bathe in your 'Angel Juice'. Angels are us pure as they come, so your blood would have kept her young as a fetus forever."

"But I'm a boy, and you said she only ever went for girls," countered Kurt nervously, as if in true belief as Noah replied. "Yeah, 'cause dudes were created in God's image or something, and sure she could have made him mega peeved if she'd started killing off his angels 'cause who else is there to trim his beard before he starts tripping up on it or to fluff up a cloud pillow for nap time, but you're not God's angel, are you Kurt."

The fair boy now huffed. "Perhaps that's because I'm not an angel."

"Oh, you're an angel alright," assured Noah, nodding in sure certainty. "The one I've fought my way through kingdoms to get to, all totally messed up by dark magic. Their kids have been strapped down and forced to ride in railroad cars so fast their cheek folds flap in the wind, cities have been shrunk into miniature parks, some people have been turned into creepy mascots that never stop asking you if you want your picture taken with them, and the real killer, lines, the never ever ending lines!"

"Is this land by any chance, Legoland? The land right behind you?" Asked Kurt with a pointed finger to the entrance smiling families were exiting from. Noah nodded again, bleakly.

"I, yes it is. I am Sir Tarzan, son of Lord Tarzan senior, leader of my gorilla group known for speeding when we need to poop and flinging it at evolutionists who say we're ascended from these 'humans' as you call them."

The fair boy laughed, asserting. "You do know you're human yourself, right. You're the ape man."

"You sound just like the last evolutionist. Don't want to say anything but he sure could have used some of that unicorn perfume of yours when we were finished with him."

In continuation of the humor, Kurt played along, now hesitating. "Actually, I haven't as of yet perfected the formula. I tested it on a few pixies the other day and they all started turning into Unitatoes."

"Unitatoes?" Noah asked with his head cocked as it was explained.

"Half unicorns, half potatoes. Unitatoes."

"Neat. Can you eat them?" Now asked Noah to have fair shoulders shrugging.

"Sure, why not. I think they taste like normal potatoes but more fabulous. It's the least I can do for receiving you looking the way I am." With a hand sweeping down his pristinely pressed polo in disdainful mockery, he continued. "My halo is being polished you see and my wings won't be ready from the dry cleaners until tomorrow. Also, it turns out; you can't play Iron Butterfly on a harp without breaking every string."

"You tried to play death metal on your harp? And a band I introduced you too? So mando! Which song?" Noah asked eagerly, nearing Kurt as the latter now paused.

"In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida."

The tan boy's eyes widened in awe. "Whoa, you're one badass angel."

"I know right," now smiled Kurt. "I just got so sick of the stuff they made us play in heaven orchestra that I needed to find my own sound, you know. Just break away from all those praise ye, praise ye hymns, and er… break my harp with it."

"Like if a T-Rex said screw this, gave in its resume to the Jurassic Park guys to pursue an electric guitar career, but struggled to strum with its tiny arms, fueled by rage and an inner desire to rock," said Noah with a grin, tucking his hands in close to his body as he imitated the claws of a frustrated Tyrannosaurus.

"Isn't that what Barney the dinosaur did?" Asked Kurt curiously as Noah moaned.

"Ah dude, I hate that guy. He's the worst T-Rex ever. Just a fat lavender lizard that looks like a salamander."

"Oh yeah. I can see the resemblance now," giggled Kurt with the image painting itself in his mind as Noah continued, his voice still hostile.

"And his songs "I love you, you love me". All bogus crap, dude. If he ever came singing that at my school I'd sit his butt hole down on a cactus. That's right; I'd teach him not to cheat on extinction."

Kurt wished to contemplate such a scenario yet it was too amusing for him to cease his laughter, now asking as he recovered. "What would you do with the other T-Rex?"

"Oh he's the real deal, dude. He's my bro for sure. We would go rock at the synagogue together afterwards. Have everyone stand up and sing along with us like they do in Gospel, even old geezers who would head bang their kippah's to the ground in their pews, and you'd be there too."

"I would?" Kurt asked as Noah nodded, his hands now in imitation of a guitar, fingers sliding down the frets. "Yep, with your harpy guitar, we'd all break away from reciting prayers and totally rock the place out."

"Why? Don't you sing often in your synagogue services?" Inquired Kurt.

"Not as often as Christians," Noah answered, hands now strumming heavily on the strings of his mind's guitar like practiced hands, hands already well in knowledge. "It's mostly during High Holiday services and special events, though mom takes us to the Friday night services every week 'cause that's when they bless us kids with a shawl over our heads and "juice" cause you know, we can't drink Jesus's alcoholic blood."

"That's what they make the children drink at our church," conceded Kurt as Noah's movements paused to bring forth a, "Hey! What if the "juice" they give us is actually "Angel Juice"! We'd all be drinking your sugar blasted angel blood!"

"I'm not an angel!" Huffed Kurt once again with his eyes now cast away. "I'm not even that into God. If I had my own church, my religious views would be the cold side of the pillow, and by pillows I mean thighs, because we all know thighs are the pillows of life."

"Can I rest my head on your pillows of life, angel? I sure am beat from my roller coaster travels, and I think riding all those untamed dinosaurs left me with sore butt globes. Might even have butt whiplash."

Shaking his head, Kurt answered, "No, your hair's all wet."

"All the more reason to," Noah replied. "I'll keep your thighs nice and cool and it would be a pity to blaspheme against your own cold pillow religion to not keep them cool." Sighing in relent, Kurt allowed Noah to lay his head.

"Can you play with my hair?" Noah now asked as he finished adjusting his sprawling body on the highly raised tree bed edge they'd both been sitting on.

"You just want me to make you another Mohawk, don't you," smiled Kurt knowingly. "I can try to make it bigger than last time, but I don't think it'll work Noah. You don't have enough hair."

"No, I just want you to play with it, that's all. I like it when you play with my hair," replied Noah honestly as Kurt asked. "Do you let anybody else do this?"

"Unless you count my dad ruffling it sometimes when I make him laugh or when my friends and I give each other noogies when we wrestle, no. You're the first I've asked I guess," muttered Noah, his bare foot tapping on the white plastered edge, hands tapping too as if to a beat.

"Because I'm your Gay Jane?" Inquired Kurt grinning. "Here to stand in for your gorillas back in Banana Country to nit-pick your hair clean oh mighty ape man?"

"Because I trust you Kurt."

The fair boy blinked. "What?"

"I dunno, I just trust you to be all gentle and stuff, and to not smother me or Chinese burn my face off," answered Noah as recovering from his momentary pause, Kurt resumed his petting.

"Is that what your friends would do if they were me?"

Noah chuckled. "Well my face is pretty open to attack here. With just one move you could gouge my eyes out and use them as Baoding balls."

"I'm good with just playing with your hair," replied Kurt as the tan boy looked up at him, grinning, "Me too."

"You look so happy, like a puppy," Kurt laughed, such a satisfying smile pulled on Noah's face, now barking, "Woof, woof!" His tongue out, indeed like a dog belly up for tummy rubs and the fair boy had never seen his friend so adorable.

"Stroking your fur, petting your head. You're tired from walkies aren't you?" He said in a voice used for infant directed speech as Noah nodded, yawning, now another "Woof!" on his lips and feeling relaxed enough to coo under the strokes of that fair hand.

"You know my mom lets me braid her hair," smiled Kurt airily, breaking the pleasant silence they'd had as Noah raised his eyes to him.

"She does?"

"Yes, it's what we do when we watch TV together," Kurt nodded, now passed caring for the wet patch on his shorts or the damp residue in his palm. "I'll start by brushing it, and she'll hand me barrettes as I style it into whatever I feel like, and she'll sit there, even when the show has ended, she won't move or say anything until I've finished."

"My hair's so short you can't do much with it. Sorry," apologized Noah meekly to Kurt's light shrug. "At least there's enough to pet."

Looking up to blue eyes again, Noah continued. "And I'd totally hand you barrettes if I had any and if I knew what they were."

The fair boy now giggled. "It's okay Noah, I don't need any. I think your hair looks good the way it is. It's not the typical shaggy surfer look, but the Tarzan if he had a haircut look or the look lifeguards and bodybuilders have on Muscle Beach."

"Like bangin nardudes? You can see me as one of them?" Asked Noah with a boyish smirk up at his friend.

"In a couple years if you don't grow out your hair, yes."

"Woah, short hair's bad ass."

To the boy's pleased grin, Kurt asserted, "It's also more manageable. I have to be more careful with my mom's because it's longer. There's more chance of it snagging in my nails, but I've been brushing it for years, ever since I was drinking from the bottle, and by bottle, I mean Ovaltine with a raw egg in it."

"Raw egg?" Frowned Noah, now scoffing. "That's actually how those Muscle Beach dudes will eat 'em before they work out. They'll stick 'em in a blender along with milk, pickle and ketchup and drink it. It's totally mank."

Kurt nodded, casting a look around. "Well when I outgrew breastfeeding, my parents fed me food rich in nutrition to help me develop a good immune system, which I'd be fine with, but if this raw egg wasn't mixed in well enough in the malted milk, I would not be happy."

"What did it taste like?" Noah asked, grinning in ever growing curiosity at Kurt's now pinched mouth.

"You know how having seaweed rub against you when you're in the ocean is like having Satan slowly caress your legs and toes whilst smiling creepily at you and whispering "mayonnaise"? Well, it's like that, but in your mouth."

Noah's laughter, oh how the boy was enjoying this. "Nasty… so when we get back, you wanna go swimming?" Kurt narrowed his eyes. "How about a raw egg?" A light shove.

"What? If you don't want it raw, you could always hard boil it in your butt. They say it's warm enough in there," said Noah, his amusement mounting ever more into wild hysterical laughter as Kurt, tempted to roll the boy off his lap and onto the ground below, threatening him.

"Do you want me to gouge your eyes out? Your face is right there."

Seeming to calm down, Noah replied, his stomach still convulsing with remnants of laughter. "How will I see your dude cuteness without my eyes, angel?"

"I am not an an-"

"Looking down at me, like you've flown from heaven with the sun eclipsing behind your head. Your skin so white, your eyes so blue. You're the cutest angel, get called it twenty three seven up in heaven."

Kurt now frowned. "Why not twenty four?"

"Snack breaks," replied Noah, as if it were obvious and to which Kurt appeared flattered, resuming running his fingers through dark damp hair, only to stop as the tan boy wrapped his arms around his waist, looking at him in assessment.

"But even though you're cute, you give off this vibe you'll snap my neck if I disrespect you, and leave me here us Lego mascot fodder, so I'm careful," continued Noah, his hold on Kurt a sure grip as the fair boy asked, "And what is it you have come to me for Sir Tarzan, son of Tarzan senior, the ape knight with muscle man hair now bunking on my lap?"

"… To look at you like a blind dude seeing the sun for the first time."

Kurt's breath hitched in his throat, smiling at such wonderful words. "… Noah."

"… Also to ask, why did God give snails five butt holes?" At Noah's sudden question, his sudden laughter as blue eyes morphed wide from the tease, Kurt playfully hit the boy upside the head and smiled, "well this conversation sure deteriorated fast." _I would have hit him harder if I'd known he was mocking me, but he wasn't laughing at me, his arms still wrapped around me and sinking his face into my stomach, his near hot breath that tickled me into my own laughter. We were laughing together. _

Their names called by adults and onto the boarding coach with its windows of parting views, Legoland waved goodbye and onto the journey home to the hotel with all children eerily quiet, their siren like calls from before no longer ringing, as if they'd all been subdued by tired parents with "just half" of a white pill that would taste like bitter flour on the tongue, there to make them sleep in a deep dazed stuporous sleep that would make their little hearts pound like slow measured blows of a sledgehammer and would turn their skin clammy as slugs, only to awaken with no recollection of the journey, perhaps even of the day if more than half of this pill had been given to them, the Legoland caps on their heads only there to jog the mind.

To stare at Noah asleep in the aisle seat next to him, that tanned face turned so Kurt could see every detail in dormant state, listing them all with whispering voice. The boy was his age, though older, born a year earlier. He was turning nine in August and entering the fourth grade in the fall, and therefore a "big boy" in Kurt's eyes, those older always "bigger" somehow, "fourth grade big" who'd study in the classroom next to theirs, eat at a different time, have their own part of the playground away from the hopscotch markings of the "babies" to the metal bars of the intertwined jungle gym set too high for Kurt to reach, for that had been set up as their base, their homeland in which fair faced little third graders would have no entrance.

Oh Noah. How was it he was here with Kurt? So kind with a face so very good looking, Kurt could not help but stare almost adoringly. "It's always lovely to have handsome young boys be your friend, Kurt," his mother had said, those hazel eyes now closed but when open, so warm and intense, for once you'd seen a boy up close in such intimacy, you'd carry his image inside you like a dream. Once you'd lived a friendship with a boy up close, you'd cherish the memory of him in your heart, and so would Kurt with Noah on his final day here in California, the golden state like a floating mellow island, something he'd known from the beginning. It could be seen on his fair face now pulled in a wounded expression as if stabbed. This child, _stabbed_.

Don't cry! It was going to be alright! Elizabeth placed her hand on his shoulder as she peered over his seat, the blue eyes of her son saddened, directed away from anyone as with sadness came thick iridescent tears and with Kurt, it was a curse, to any mortal, that whomever he should look upon when weeping and he'd break their heart, or so it felt like, the _tearing_, the _wrenching_ pain now receding in his mother as he listened to her soothing whispers, plans that they'd arrive at the hotel to have dinner all together, them and the Puckerman's, and afterwards, attend the special event karaoke night the hotel was putting later on that evening. How would he like that? Listening so hard, it was like her son had gone deaf as he nodded, yes.

Noah was to remain unknowing of Kurt's shift in mood during the journey, the reason for it. "It would be best not to let him know now," Elizabeth had said gently. "We'll tell him later." Yet even awakening the boy upon their eventual arrival at the hotel, the evidence in Kurt's eyes in which a scrim of moisture continuously shone in the blue was there to be seen, though mistaken in Noah's own heavy lidded sight as what made them so glass like, a wakening sight so blurred like a camera lens too heavily coated in Vaseline, that Kurt had had to steady him at first on their return to their rooms, both of them giggling in silly nature as if intoxicated in a haze that wouldn't settle but suddenly interrupted by the grumbling of their little stomachs.

Then it was dinner time at the hotel's cabana set 1500 Ocean restaurant, there to dine from six to seven thirty outdoors on the beachfront terrace. All five of them were seated, eating, and Thomas was to chortle at the boys' fun anecdotes as they recounted their day, Noah often demonstrating the events with his cutlery, even with his food as he'd fly his bread like a toy roller coaster into his Pappardelle Bolognese that would splatter sauce across the white tablecloth to narrowly miss Kurt's clothes and onto his bare arm. His father scolded him lightly, "Noah, careful with the food," to which Kurt dabbed the greasy stain away with his napkin after rejecting Noah's apologetic yet boyishly cheeky alternative of having him lick it off for him.

They were soon to finish, with the setting sun dusting the sea line as the bill was paid with turquoise mints accompanying, now night and leaving behind an aura of shimmering luminescent candles on every table as they left the restaurant for a night of karaoke in the Coronet Room, adjacent to the Crown Room and off the lobby with floor to ceiling windows and chandelier, the latter dimmed in favour of gel lights, oranges, purples and pinks, all illuminating little circular tables so cosy, dotting the room, giving the air of an exclusive yet rustic New York City jazz cub, and at the front, the ground level stage where speakers stood tall on either side like black columns from the façade of a neoclassical wonder, the karaoke machine caught in between.

Observers, distracted from the current woman singing rather decently a rendition of "Moon River", took note that it took two of these small tables for the five new arrivals, the adults clumped close to each other on one whilst the two boys sat together on the next, their faces seemingly thrilled and listening on intently with smiles that would wince on notes missed. Yet every so often the tanned one would whisper smiling into the other's ear, him the raconteur, his fair friend, the reticent, for the fair boy appeared more at ease listening than speaking; when you listened, you didn't need to improvise, now leaning forward on his elbows, his little chest rising and falling with the urgency of his breath with both legs primly returned beneath the table.

Through a repertoire of well-known songs, "The Way We Were" - "Take My Breath Away" - "My Heart Will Go On" and sung by various brave souls with various degrees of talent and the tan boy would continue to whisper occasionally in the fair boy's ear, mere passing comments at times, others that had his friend's shoulders shuddering in giggles as if a tongue were in his ear tickling him, sweet nothings abound in words. Yet the observers' eyes were made to avert themselves when the tan boy would look sweepingly around the murmurous room as if he sensed them watching, and then, the shuffling, nearing his chair by degrees ever closer to his friend in a shy yet bold advance, the air of a mateo surfer snatching the first big wave of the day.

And the observers saw this, trying to not look his way as if this eight year old was the sun bright enough to burn their retinas, yet seeing him, like the sun, without looking, for to them, this was hardly a mere diversion but a crucial episode in a narrative to which they could neither give name nor would wish to. They all saw the way he now leapt up to sing "You've Got a Friend In Me" from Pixar's Toy Story, a country jazz song that had him swaying on rocking feet, a performance that slackened not their interests, with the boy sauntering up to his friend and crooning, _Some other folks might be a little bit smarter than I am, bigger and stronger too. _His fair friend blushing a smile. _But_ _none of them will ever love you the way I do, it's me and you boy. _

The lyrics echoed in every observers' mind, "friends", new found of course with neither of them having known each other for long that was for sure. There were signs, but they were happy, like the first six months of a young couple's marriage with both now singing to Toy-Box's "Tarzan and Jane" much to their own amusement, though with laughter driven not from the blatant sexual innuendos, but from an inside joke, or so what was guessed. _My name is Tarzan, I am Jungle-Man. _It was sticky bubble-gum to the ears, cheesy in the mouth yet look away and you'd miss it, this spectacle of innocent candied cavorsion with each putting on voices, the gestures grand and eaten up by all. _Tarzan is handsome, Tarzan is strong, so listen to the Jungle Song. _

Of course in the end they were applauded, of course as they bowed exaggeratedly to return to their seats they were cheered, the last two performances of theirs sheer silliness incarnate, but it was in the name of fun, a certain breath of fresh air from the incessant line up of ballads sung by muffin topped men and their rosacea faced wives. The boys themselves were flushed but smiling as their parents praised them with a round of colas for them both, soon drunk down worn vocal cords, down into expanding rib cages, the house of the diaphragm that many had believed sourced great young voices, singing voices, both attuned like switching on the radio. It was possible they had "the ear" for music too, certainly alongside talent for performing.

For the fair boy, the truth was he'd tried out for the choir at school, for he knew he could sing, he _knew_! His voice was always in melody at home and melodic to his own ears. "I Saw Three Ships" had been a favourite of his, but when the choir director had asked him to sing a different song, one he'd never heard before, he'd stared at the music sheet, stared at these notes that he'd not been able to read, and not be able to sing as the woman at the piano had played through the score to his lost confident, breathy, wavering, disappointing voice – not his! He'd asked, "Please can I try again?" The second time, his voice was stronger, but not by much. "Maybe next year, Kurt," the choir director had said, dismissing him politely. _Not this time._

The fair boy was to take the floor for a solo. Solo, Italian for alone. All alone without his friend beside him, alone to stand on the stark lighted floor, blinking and squinting into the front row of tables where his family and friends were, and to begin his song where the lyrics he knew by heart would not blur in his mind, his throat would not seem to close. His voice did not hurry or choke with a tongue too large for his mouth, neither did he stammer, falter or lose his way to have another teacher dismiss him, an awkward pause of murmurs and muffled laughter when he'd ask would ask for another go, only to have the unmoved teacher reply in a voice laced in irony so that more favoured pupils might laugh at his "wit" and at the object of his wit. "No."

He sang "I Wanna Be Loved By You" from Bill Wilder's Some Like It Hot and he was hailed for it. His _boop boopie do_ so sweet! His _padam, padam, patoodilidum, poo_ so cute you wanted to love him; you wanted to kiss him. His mother, who'd mouthed the lyrics along with her son during the performance, as if they had been singing together, lead the applause, which was her prerogative as a parent along with her husband, and his friend joined in eagerly praising him with the fair boy himself not staring at the floor and biting his lip till it almost bled his sedated heart yet beating in an effort to know if they all were lying consciously or were themselves innocently deceived, but now smiling triumphantly, for he'd sung well and he believed it.

"Dude, you sure can sing about wanting the love," smiled Noah as Kurt came to sit himself back down beside him, the fair boy with heart still racing from the performance, the numbness in his legs receding as he asserted, "and for someone who said they'd never sing period, you did good too."

"It's karaoke, man," Noah now replied. "It'd be like taking your board out to the beach but never surfing like a total waxboy, or going to comic con and not dressing up in fruit boobs as every nerd's fantasy."

"Fruit boobs?" Inquired Kurt, his amusement ripe.

"Yeah, cut a cantaloupe in half, stick both sides onto you and there you go. Fruit boobs," Noah nodded, the air of a male presenter explaining such a thing on a kid's art show about him. "And if you wanna get real detailed, stick on actual raisins for your sensitive chest raisins. Grapes are good too."

His fair friend laughed. "So this is what you did in art class instead of being given coloring books. You learned how to make lady parts out of fruit."

"Not just fruit," began Noah, that lopsided smile like a warning, though a warning you wished him to say. "I tried stuffing Jello down the back of my friend's underpants to get some serious bubble butt jiggle goin' on, but most of it fell down his trousers. The rest we're kinda thinking got absorbed by his skin. His pores are total over eaters like that." Kurt's face appeared to pinch itself as if a lemon had been made to wave around under his nose.

"Noah, that's gross. Why did he let you do that to him?"

"Because I promised to go around afterwards with a donut on my dong to get a girl in my class to eat around it." Noah replied to Kurt's horror.

"Oh my God, Noah!"

"What, dude? It was hard to find one with a big enough hole or one with not too much glaze so it wouldn't keep on sliding off. It got real messy down there."

Rolling his eyes, Kurt huffed away. "Well obviously, you were putting your wing wang through donut holes. Please tell me every one of them was burnt and every girl counselled."

"Nah brah, half of them I put in the staff room Dunkin Donut box and the other half I hid in a girl scout's bag," The fair boy was once again to gape, soon shut with a hand to his mouth.

"You mean, your teachers and the people in your town were eating those donuts without even knowing you'd worn them on your… thing?"

Noah couldn't help but chuckle. That had been a good day. "Well I know the girls in my class won't have eaten one. I've totally ruined donuts for them all that's for sure."

"You're supposed to be nice to girls Noah, not scare them. How are you going get a girlfriend if you make them run from you?"

The tanned boy scoffed. "I got a girlfriend."

"You do?" Asked Kurt, blinking, stumped as Noah answered, "Yeah, she's totally real."

"Okay. What's her name?"

"Her name? Urm…" The fair boy looked on as his friend hesitated.

" … Mysterious… Mysterious Blood Pyramid. She goes to a different school than I do."

"Where?"

"St. Aztec School for Babelinis."

"Really?"

"Yeah, and she's real into Disney, so you'll like her, and she's got a totally neat idea for a princess," smiled Noah as Kurt's brows now raised as if to peak in total curiosity.

"She does?"

"Just hear me out," Noah began, smiling on. "A princess who can't sing. A pretty young girl who sounds like a beached whale when she tries to sing "Happy Birthday," and none of the musical numbers feature her because she doesn't sing, but halfway through the movie, she figures out she can rap like hell."

"Noah, is your girlfriend imaginary?" Asked Kurt gently, his smile too, gentle.

"Yeah," Noah relented, now grinning at himself, chuckling even as he continued. "But if she was, firstly, I'd never call her 'honey' in front of bees. They do not understand the concept of nicknames and will viciously attack her in hope of getting back what was taken from them. Secondly, she wouldn't be "naturally pretty", but supernaturally pretty, or a hot ass ghost, or a freakin' alien."

The fair boy's smile grew. "An alien?"

"Yeah, I'd date the fudge outta E.T. Get some finger to finger action goin' on."

With voice in imitation of the character, though not entirely convincing to either one of them, Kurt said, "E.T. phone Noah. E.T. give Noah happy huggy time with my glowing chest light."

The tan boy laughed. "Totally. I mean girls are cool and all with their strawberry smelling hair and it's so easy to make em' faint when they see your wang, but aliens, they're like, let's go surf my spaceship on energy waves and make out."

"And E.T. would be the most convincing at Comic Con," remarked Kurt as Noah replied near avidly.

"Yeah, we'd totally win the costume contest."

"Just don't show them your fruit boob raisin nippled cantaloupes."

Noah frowned defensively. "Hey, I take pride in those fruit boobs. I just couldn't pull 'em off that's all. Not like you could though."

With a shake of the head, Kurt refused. "Oh no, I'm not modelling your orange fleshed lemons. I've got my own costume."

His tan friend asked, "What is it?"

"Well it's a tough call. It's either Ken, Prince Philip or Gay Jane in jungle wear," listed Kurt, three of his fingers out as Noah answered childishly, "Gay Jane! Gay Jane!"

Kurt nodded keenly. "Now that is a look I could pull off right there."

"And are you bringin' anyone along?" Asked Noah closely. "Comic Con's a total zoo of inhaler taking nerds brushing off the basement dust. They're like spiders, and you could sure do with a Tarzan by your side."

Kurt frowned, disgusted. "Nerds are like spiders?"

"Yeah, spiders can't run for extended periods of time because they have asthma," explained Noah, the thought processes in his mind to Kurt like machinery no one could run apart from himself. "All spiders are nerds, even tarantulas. I mean, have you ever seen a spider dating a hot babe? I doubt it. A spider flashing his cash in the club? Nope. A spider pulling up beside you at the lights in a Lamborghini? Never happened. They've got so many eyes because they love reading. Nerds. All of them."

"Well then I guess I'll bring someone along," relented Kurt as Noah smirked.

"Cool, I-"

"Not you."

"Why not?" Noah asked hurt as Kurt argued, "you left me for E.T., that wrinkled little mutant sphynx thing with no legs. I'm not taking you back when you'd prefer to be with someone who abducts cows and likes to butt probe you with his own glowing finger. Nu-huh."

Noah protested. "Ain't no butt probin' going on here. I'd sooner snap it off, say "lumos" and win the Harry Potter wand contest."

"You can only enter the Comic Con costume contest once as only one character… right?" Asked Kurt unsurely. "I mean I've never been. How does it work?"

Noah replied, rather brusquely. "Who cares? All you ever win at those things is a trophy that technically belongs to the real manufacturer of your costume - your own mom."

The fair boy now leaned back in his chair as if this fact was irrelevant. "Not this costume. I'd make it myself. Cream top, shorts and red hot vine swinging sass all the way."

"Sass is sweet, but do you know what's better?" Began Noah. "Tarzan goin with you to Comic Con, and you know what's better than Tarzan? Nothing, 'cause I'm Tarzan, with a kangaroo pouch of garlic bread cause I know how to have a good time."

Kurt laughed. "A pouch is a little big for just one girlfriend."

The tanned boy shrugged. "I'd have loads of girlfriends, and boyfriends, cause I don't friend zone people, I relationship zone them. You wanna be my friend? Too bad, we're dating."

"Does that mean we're dating? You and me?" Asked Kurt as Noah nodded.

"Hella Kurt. We've got test tube blowin' chemistry up in this bitch."

The fair boy smiled. "That would help us beat the Chewbaccas' and the Indiana Jones' at Comic Con."

"Yeah, just have us cuddle our lips together and they'll spontaneously combust," chuckled Noah. "Then we'd win the trophy, hang with Captain America, shaka sign with Stan Lee and go about standing next to nerds embarrassed we look better than them."

"Wow, you're good at this boyfriend thing," smiled Kurt, his knees bouncing in excitement as Noah replied, "Nah, call me your supreme overload boyfriend, baby. It sounds more hardcore, 'cause that's my job when on boyfriend duty, being hardcore."

"You are such a boy," Kurt teased, yet bringing forth his friend's smile.

"But seriously Kurt, we should totally go to Comic Con. It happens every July and it's only like ten minutes away from here. We can go check it out. What are you doing tomorrow?"

"I'm er…" Kurt paused, his stomach sinking pitifully as he glanced over at his mother. "I'm not here tomorrow."

"Why, where are you going?" Noah asked.

"I'm leaving."

"What?"

"This was my last day here and my parents and I have to book out of the hotel by nine tomorrow to catch our flight back home to Ohio." Another pause as hazel eyes remained fixed on his own, now wavering to the ground as Kurt continued. "We were only staying a week here and it has been seven days. Time flies, right?"

"No, time flies when you're throwin' watches Kurt, and I'm not throwin' watches here," answered Noah, voice deepened to a tone that had the fair boy's belly now churning. "I don't want time to fly, or you to fly away with it. I want you to stay."

"Noah so do I, but there's nothing I can do."

"Sure there is," replied Noah. "Don't go."

Kurt's shoulders slumped with a sigh. "Noah-"

"Jane stayed with Tarzan, Kurt. She listened to daddy, jumped outta that boat and macked on her ape man like a good girl."

"Noah, please-" began Kurt once more but to animated interruption.

"What about Comic Con?" Asked Noah despairingly, as if in already in defeat, as if he already knew he was close to begging. "We were gonna do all that cool stuff. I… I didn't even tell you the plan I had to pimp up Darth Vader's cape. It was gonna be in pink leopard print."

"It was?" Kurt asked meekly as Noah nodded with head bowed to his drawn knees.

"Yeah, 'cause you said you liked pink and that it could look good next to black."

_I had listened to Kurt. I had always listened to him, but now words of leaving, a nine o'clock book out, a plane, flying watches, Ohio?! I slumped in my chair with a kid's desperate hope overlaid with a more adult fatalist knowledge Kurt would not stay, he would abandon me, I would hate him. Sitting there with his hands by his side's, palms facing upwards uselessly as if he didn't know what to do with them. You idiot! You're to grab onto your chair and never let go! Splinter your fingers bloody if you have to! Can't you put any damn effort into resisting?! I'm your friend! No, correction, your boyfriend! I was eight, sure, but I was old enough to be bitter, angry, to feel the injustice in all of this, and angry a second time! … 'cause I'd known this would come._

The air had thickened uncomfortably, and the observers' sensed such thickening, watched as the tan boy was now lead out of the room by his friend's mother and there to talk just beyond the door as she crouched to his level. To some of them, the boy appeared despondent to her words, his head hung and not meeting her eye. Others claimed to see his fist rubbing his tearing eyes, the back of his hand used to wipe them away as he cried. To him, it was as if the whole day had now been the last of a cancer patient's, the doctor's having encouraged him to the spend the few remaining hours with his friend before he'd die, the bed empty the next day, and a new family staying in that room that he'd knock at in hope, asking for Kurt… asking again.

All witnessing accounts of the woman hugging the child afterwards were constant, and they returned to their tables soon after. The boy then hugged his friend as they squeezed into the same seat, their arms wrapped around each other as if vines wound tight around a garden wall trellis, the tan boy's arms lean and strong like a growing boy's, whose underarms and often greasy or sea salted hair from the ocean you could smell, the tan boy with rough comforting ways like a small dog, rubbing his face against that of his emotionally battered looking blue-eyed doll of a friend, who hugged and hugged and hugged until rib cages were squeezed to wild heartbeats felt underneath, neither of them speaking and only turning to look at each other.

Fewer and fewer people were approaching the karaoke now, now realizing their voices merely rendered its repertoire absurd with the karaoke itself looking more like a toy instrument, an emblem of kindergarten toy life that belonged in the hands of children leaning nursery rhymes. There was no longer any fun in imitating the suggestive-seductive big-doll body movements of superstar singers, Mae West like, Little Bo Beep even in lurid commingling, the whole thing like mutton dressed as lamb to those even older. And their ideas were somewhat justified as those two little boys were seen once again by the karaoke with both microphones in their hands, tapping them awkwardly and standing in front of protruding unblinking all-knowing eyes.

There they sang "You'll Be In My Heart" from Disney's Tarzan, and it was as if they'd died since their previous comical songs only to return completely changed, like the kids they were, having realized the world wasn't what it seemed. They sang with such heart, facing and nearing each other with the tan one unnerving those in the front his emotion was so raw, raw enough to burst into a tantrum or sobs strangely without tears as he'd pound on his thighs, but _I will be here, don't you cry _sang his fair friend, and _I may not be with you but you've got to hold on _the tan boy sang back, that the audience would "see in time" of what they were to each other, these two boys just so young, everybody wanted to help them, save them and their hearts.

**.**

**Glee**

**.**

It was a goodbye to his bed that would soon be stripped by the cleaning staff of any remnants it had of him left. Goodbye was in the upholstered furniture, the white wooden shutters, the cream lily light bulbs below the fan. He waved goodbye to the balcony overlooking the garden patio, in its center, the courtyard pavilion with its glaring blood orange tiled roof and farewell to all else his blue eyes glazed over as with his wheeled suitcase in hand, standing beside his mother with their bags propped up neatly all around them, he looked on as Burt closed their suite door for the final time. A room no longer booked under the name "Hummel", their key card returned to the front desk in the lobby with the time reading 8:56am on Sunday, 22nd of July.

Elizabeth had flustered her disapproval at cutting it so close to the nine o'clock check out deadline - "Burt, come on, we have to go already" - a voice like a frantic-comic radio voice directed at her husband as he'd gone around collecting every one of the hotel's "freebies" as he'd nicknamed them within their room from the products in the bathroom, soap, shampoo, toothpaste, to the sugar packets, fruit snacks and tea on the coffee tray that they had never once used throughout their stay. Kurt himself had taken a tube of Aloe Vera moisturizer, the tube like all the others, small at 50ml, but to be packed carefully away for in case of a spillage and it would stain his clothes with a cleaning process even more frustrating than the actual packing itself.

Kurt had been given the opportunity to go play with Noah as Elizabeth had offered to take care of his things, but he was eight, old enough to be doing it himself as he had folded his strange, fanciful pieces of brightly hued clothing, cotton mesh polos and tees, prospect shorts, soft woven jumpers and cardigans, in imitation of his mother's own hands and refolding them when they came out too big, even his much laundered "linen" and "under things" that became fiddly in his little hands, the many souvenirs squeezed together, his tiger too, cramming it all into his suitcase with temptation to sit on it and growing irritable from his mother's incessant words for him to "go see Noah," "go see Noah", "Kurt, don't, I can do this. Now go see Noah."

The young surfer dude, tanned with good looking face. Kurt had not seen that face since last night, and it had been dispirited when they'd parted for their rooms, no "chow dude," no "aloha, bro" not even a "later", but a "bye Kurt," his usual surf lingo so chill, so hung loose, only deadened on his tongue as he'd promised to meet up with Kurt the following morning before he'd leave, but to say what to him? "Bye, Kurt" yet a second time with that face so downhearted? It wasn't as if Elizabeth had half carried her son, half dragged him down to the lobby, alternatively begging and scolding him after he'd stayed to pack, stalled, too anxious to see Noah, for she knew not saying goodbye was another way to hang on, to pretend it all wasn't happening.

_In waiting, I was a child lacking speech and comprehension, for Noah, he was not mature enough to comprehend the rage of my leaving, not the ecstasy of madness such rage could stoke, a madness that he would voluntary snap a rabbit's neck for me to stay, appearing before us now with Thomas by his side yet without a word, taking my hand to lead me outside the main entrance into the sun that singed my eyelashes and seared my eyes as if I'd been forced to look directly at it. Together again, the both of us appeared defeated. With wounds dug deep into our souls it really would seem one of us was leaving the other, and people around had the decency to look away as I looked at my friend, and he looked at me, such familiarity in those looks. _

"Well, this sucks," muttered Noah, sitting them both down on a nearby bench beside the hotel sign. "Schwag sucks, and that's a ton of sucking."

Kurt nodded. "I know, I don't feel too good about it either. Leaving is the worst thing that can happen on a good holiday, and I don't go on that many holidays so I'm not used to it."

"I'm used to it alright," replied Noah, "Just not used to saying goodbye to new made homies the coolest in all Cali."

The fair boy smiled. "… You're the first to ever call me that."

"Well coming from a surfer, you know it's true," grinned Noah assuredly. "You're cool Kurt, and rad, and don't let anyone change that r to an s."

From a giggle, Kurt now asserted. "I suppose you never let others do that to you, right? Everybody likes you, Noah."

"Not all," denied the tan boy. "I got neighbors who want my butt globes on a silver platter cause I went around jumpin' over their fences last summer to pee in their pools and write "Honk if Noah is Great" in sunblock on their backs."

"Did they come after you?" Asked Kurt as Noah chuckled.

"Sure they did. They knocked on our front door and shouted at my parents. Total riot, man. Then after, my ma said the dumbest thing to me, "this isn't how I raised you, Noah Puckerman" and I said "yeah it is. You literally raised me and here I am in all my awesomeness, howdying the neighbros and tinkling gold in their chlorine."

The fair boy now asked in curiosity. "Didn't your dad have anything to say about it? He was a swimmer wasn't he?"

"Yeah, but he said it was okay, just as long as I didn't make a yellow puddle. He's lax like that," answered Noah casually.

"Yes, he is," agreed Kurt. "I think you get it from him, that care free looseness. It's just so surfer."

The tan boy laughed. "Yeah, and it drives my ma totally wack. Even saying wack insteada crazy will make her nuts. She just doesn't like it when we use surf talk around her."

Kurt smiled now. "Must have been another reason why she chose not to come here where it's the lingo."

"Too bad, cause she would have loved you Kurt," grinned Noah to Kurt's frown. "How do you know?"

"You're like the perfect son, dude," the tan boy now replied. "You dress good, you speak good, you say 'well' insteada good. All good, and it's not that my mom doesn't like my friends 'cause you know, what mom wouldn't love to have a bunch of totally amped up third grade bros water ballooning her house down with her slingshot girl panties, it's just that you'd be the one she'd ask over the most."

"Why? You don't think I'd be into water ballooning?" Kurt asked with one brow raised, minor defiance in his voice.

"Wouldn't think you'd be as into it as my Dallas dudes, no," answered Noah, shrugging. "They're real doke that way and you're more-"

"Vanilla, I know," murmured Kurt quietly with a sigh. "Sometimes Noah when you talk of your friends I wonder why you ever tried to get to know me in the first place, to risk the pain of now having to say goodbye to me like this. I'm nothing like them."

"So? What's your point," asked Noah, frowning. "Aren't I allowed to make friends with people different from me? I'm friends with you aren't I?"

"Yes, but why?" The fair boy asked insistently to Noah's shrug.

"Cause you're cool to be around."

"You didn't know that before you knew me. So why did you approach me?"

"Dude, who cares?"

"I care!" Shouted Kurt. "If you'd only left me alone at that fountain, leaving this place would be whole a lot easier!"

Thrown, the tan boy exclaimed, "What?!"

"This is exactly why you never get attached to people when on holiday Noah! Because this happens!" Kurt said, gesturing to them both heatedly. "It's alright for you to come out here and make friends like they're a dime a dozen and to not even worry when the time comes to say goodbye to them, because at least you have all your "homies" to go back to, your "brohahs" on the soccer team, your homeroom slugger mates. You want to know how many friends I have back in Ohio? One, Noah. One."

"That Chinese girl, right?" Asked Noah as Kurt now exhaled irritably.

"Her name is Tina Chohen Chang Noah, and yes, she's from China, but because she stutters so much half the time I don't even know what she's saying. Nobody talks to her, they laugh at the kyaraben lunchbox her mom makes her, and they all stick us both together in the corner of the playground they named "Cootie Town" because apparently we're infested enough with the dreaded "loser lurgi" to create such a place."

"Kurt, I-"

"I can't afford to lose the friends I make, Noah, because I'm poor in that way," the fair boy continued, sorrowfully. "Aside from my momma and daddy, I have next to no one in my life. So I hope you never take your friends for granted, because they love you, don't they?"

"Sure," uttered Noah softly.

"And you love them too, don't you? Every single one?"

"I guess." Kurt examined the tan boy's face only to smile weekly. "… You're lucky."

And Noah looking at Kurt replied, "… Yeah."

"Do you love me, Noah?" The tan boy's heart skipped.

"Hella, Kurt. I do," he breathed. "You're the Gay Jane to my Tarzan? And this ape boy's really gonna miss his angel in the Dallas Forest where he has friends sure, but that doesn't mean he's gonna have with 'em what he had with his Gay Jane, 'cause ain't no one out there like his Gay Jane, a whole lotta closer with him than he is with any one of them others, cuddle-cuddle close with kisses, or I as I like to call it, smash mouth-"

"Noah."

"… I'm not gonna find that with anyone else Kurt … You're my best bruh."

Surprised, Kurt asked, "I am?"

"Yeah, and that ain't nothin' to regret about," continued Noah earnestly. "Fountain or no fountain, I wanted to say hi. You looked like you needed someone to show you the world isn't just one massive "Cootie Town."

"Because there are people like you."

"You betcha." The fair boy smiled. "I will be better for having known you, Noah… even when I know I will probably never ever see you again."

"No Kurt, we will," assured the tan boy as Kurt fell into his arms, crying, "Of all the people in my life… why are you the one I have to say goodbye to?"

"You don't have to," Noah replied, as Kurt frowned. "Come home to Texas with me, Kurt. I'll rescue you from that loser school and bring you home. I'll be way attentive to your needs, I'll hang with you, make sure people see your have star quality like the Hulk in movies other than The Hulk, and on the see saw; I'll stay down for as long as you want."

"You'd do that all for me?" sniffed Kurt, "Where would I stay, where would I sleep?"

"Well we'd have to pull a whole E.T. hide you in the closet kinda thing," Noah replied, now rubbing his friend's back comfortingly, "and I'll pass you morning water for food, cause dew drops looks like your beauty secret to keeping cute, and when we're at school, we'll totally mess with people and say we're to stay near each other always because if our pride wristbands stray apart too far, it'll destroy the universe."

"Does that mean I'm still your boyfriend, Noah?" The fair boy asked faintly to Noah's soft grin.

"You know you don't need to ask, angel."

"Good," replied Kurt, "'cause I already know when I'm older that I don't want to marry someone like you like my mom said, but you. I want to marry you."

Grin widening, Noah shook his head chuckling. "No, I wanna marry _you_, Kurt."

"You do?"

"Damn right! I wanna get down on one knee, propose and marry the fudge outta you so fast we'll have our first kid."

"What would you name them?" Kurt asked eagerly as Noah paused, now pondering.

"For a boy, Noahzilla."

"Um… no," replied Kurt.

"How about for a girl, Noahzina?"

"Nope."

"Lizard?"

"That's not a name."

"Yeah it is," insisted Noah. "Lizard, and then she'll get the nickname "Liz" and everyone will ask "oh, is it short for Elizabeth?" but she will have to say "no, my name is Lizard."

The fair boy sighed. "Noah, why? Why do you hate our unborn child?" "What? I think it's a totally awesome name."

"I'm the one who's going to have listen to a peppy nurse scream for me to push and push in a delivery room and I'm not going to lose a push-up contest in front of my new born girl only to name her Lizard," replied Kurt, now firmly.

"What are you talkin' about?" Frowned the tan boy. "The mutant pterodactyl stork's gonna bring our baby, our awesome cool scaly skinned-"

"No Lizard."

"Dang," Noah said, now grinning guiltily. "Okay, you name her, but can I at least practice my slam dunks on her?"

"We are so not ready for this," sighed Kurt amusedly as Noah nudged his shoulder.

"I'm ready for you though. I have a little something for you." Diving his hand into his short pocket, the tan boy retrieved a silver surf ring. "Kickass, right?" Grinned Noah as Kurt gaped. "I bought two the other day at the jewellers place here for us both, and this one's for you. I tried to pick out the most surfer looking one they had."

"It's beautiful," the fair boy muttered, tracing it with a finger. "How much was it?"

"A little doubloon heavy," shrugged Noah, "but not as much as some promise stones they had that signified that whenever the wearer should ever become a burden, they have to jump into a volcano."

"Really?" Asked Kurt.

"Oh yeah. Surf jewelry's real spiritual. It can mean a whole lotta things like you're sure to get sweet nectar waves today yet tomorrow your shower water pressure is gonna screw you over with a range from "gently peeing on you" to "I fear for the safety of my nipples"."

"And what does this ring signify?" Now asked the fair boy.

"See those wave markings there," said Noah, indicating to the tiki influenced wave designs encircling the outer rim of the ring, the water itself almost embossed and made seemingly to raise from the silver, "they mean the sea will always carry you to shore, no matter how far out you are. Also, for any glass bottled messages you wanna send out. Also, me."

"You?" Asked Kurt, now enlivened as he smiled at the tan boy looking right at him.

"I want you to think of me when you wear it," Noah requested softly, picking up the ring from his wide open palm and sliding it onto Kurt's outstretched finger, the fit snug looking at that fair ring flesh. "Remember our time together that was more awesome for me than the breaks at Waimea."

"Those must be some good breaks," smiled Kurt, admiring his gift, twisting it to make it look as if the waves were rolling as the tan boy grinned.

"Totally."

Now with a look at his friend Kurt said, "Wait here."

"Where are you…" trailed Noah stumped as the fair boy returned into the hotel on a run only to return a few minutes later with a Princess Diana rose tartan blanket, familiar and folded neatly against his chest as he came to sit back down, holding it out with a smile.

"For you."

"Your blankie?" Asked Noah, shocked. "You're giving it to me?"

"I did buy you something at the Safari Park but I thought you'd prefer this," shrugged Kurt as the tan boy took it from him. "You always did say you liked it."

"It smells just like you," Noah murmured, his voice muffled from a nose dug deep in cashmere the scent of his friend's angel dust. "I'm never having my mom wash this."

"I used to use it as Aladdin's magic carpet, and sometimes as Snow White's red cape."

"Yeah?" Grinned Noah as Kurt nodded.

"I know it doesn't look like either of them, but that's what imagination is there for, right?"

"Sure," smiled the tan boy. "I used to pretend that I had my spine removed so I could go down stairs like a slinkie."

"Oh Noah, I'm going to miss you," smiled Kurt as Noah now grabbed his hand.

"Don't go," he pleaded. "I think there's gonna be something wrong with the plane or something. It's not fully functional, but a very convincing Lego replica, full scale and everything."

"Noah-"

"I mean it, Kurt. I don't want you goin' back home where you feel like an alien in your own skin. Stay, and I'll find a way to show you all the stars and planets that line your eyeballs."

Smiling, the fair boy said, "You already have."

There was a wish to protest further, to tighten his hold on fair flesh, but with a cry of her son's name from the main entrance, both boys turned to see a small crowd gathered outside, Elizabeth waving Kurt over dolefully, Thomas by her side with Burt handing their suitcases to the driver who was swiftly stacking each one with such ease it was as if they were empty and into the large luggage storage of the minibus now parked outside, that white minibus that would drive the Hummel's to San Deigo International Airport to catch a flight home to Ohio, and one that would have Kurt sitting awkwardly wedged in between his parents for the entire journey, silent, and listening as they'd both comfort him with words swirling about his head like gnats.

Saying goodbye to this boy Kurt Hummel now, saying goodbye to Noah Puckerman too, it crushed them together into a deep embrace where the tan boy grasped onto his fair friend's cotton polo and made to scrunch it, deform it in emotion as he held on tight, murmuring almost in anguish words so muffled with a voice so hoarse in Kurt's neck the boy himself didn't know what he was saying, just breathing hotly with Kurt's own face nestled in his. There he stroked Noah's surfer beaded necklace, inhaled that sea salted scent that pinched the nose to raise the unconscious, and rubbed his back, though he never patted it, _never_, for patting would signal the leave and Noah would only cling on harder, though inevitable to _that_ word, "goodbye."

The hugging, pulled in for another hug, and hugging some more was broken as like a crying baby ripped from their mother's arms, Kurt pulled away from Noah, his fair fingers like ice in the tan boy's hands from his state of shock, his breath seizure like and harmful as he finally turned and ran to board the bus, there to disappear behind a closing door, but reappearing once more in view as in a window seat towards the front, Kurt was to press himself against the glass to catch one last look of his friend, Thomas now beside his son and waving. "We'll see you again sometime, kiddo," the man had said, his hand raised in a waving shaka sign, "hang loose." And Kurt had nodded, Noah himself now shaka signing him with a dolent smile, "goodbye."

_My summer vacation in California of that year ended the second Kurt boarded that bus. I still had three more days remaining but I didn't know what the hell I was supposed to do without him, that the Hotel Del only appeared cavernous now, that its waves weren't worth surfing anymore and if I did I'd fall and punch my board until my knuckles would blister. My hands I could have used to hold on tighter to Kurt than I had done, the best friend I loved. It had been a friendship so strong it had physically shaken me, noticed by my dad that I'd stop making friends on holidays from then on, searching instead for Kurt in the friends I already had. No. Absolutely, there was only one Gay Jane of mine, and someday we would meet again. That was my promise. _

The surf ring on Kurt Hummel's finger would soon be noticed by his mother, the woman catching sight of it sitting next to her numbed and faintly smiling son as he'd twist it around ever so slowly to an explanation she had to lean closer to hear. Yet it was not as if Elizabeth was looking at it with fastidious eyes when she frowned, but curiosity as she asked to inspect it, Kurt handing it over for his mother to turn it towards the light as if it were a puzzle, only for her to say, "Kurt sweetie, this isn't a spiritual ring, it's a promise ring." "A what?" Kurt would ask confusedly, and there as she slid the ring back onto his finger, she smiled. "It's a ring that signifies a promise." "What promise is that?" Her son asked as Elizabeth winked sweetly. "You'll see."

_And whatever I would see, whatever this ring now promised, would lay sparkling in my mother's eyes for her to know until I'd find out for myself, until I'd come to realization. The ring itself would stay on my finger the whole way back, and though my dad assured me he'd have the photos of Noah and I developed as soon as possible, that we'd exchanged contact information with the Puckerman's for a possible near future reunion, the ring was my sole joy and comfort, not a heavy little thing with an almost choke like pressure around my finger, in fact a little loose, but on, twisting and turning to the sound of crashing frothy waves of California in my head, and echoing with it the promise I would hold to Noah whatever it was until we'd meet again._

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